


Witchers don't have familiars

by beta_omega, star-gazer (beta_omega)



Series: Witchers Don't Have Familiars [1]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Other, Unexpected sads im so sorry, but still background, cat demons, jaskier loves cats, no betas we die like calanthe, the aiden/lambert is very very background, the geralt/jaskier less so, what are tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:40:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 58,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27693584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beta_omega/pseuds/beta_omega, https://archiveofourown.org/users/beta_omega/pseuds/star-gazer
Summary: "Witchers don’t have familiars.They don’t. They’re nothing like the witches in the old stories. They have just enough magic for signs, but little more than that. They certainly don’t have enough magic to call a supernatural beast into being for the purpose of following them and enhancing their magic. Nothing follows them except death and destruction and the stench of blood and guts packed into the crevices of their armor too tightly to remove without stopping for longer than is generally safe.But something follows him."Or the one in which the Wolves of Kaer Morhen winter with a cat
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher), Eskel (The Witcher)/Original Character(s), Eskel (The Witcher)/Original Female Character(s), Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: Witchers Don't Have Familiars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105421
Comments: 114
Kudos: 243





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Or the fic that I wrote instead of addressing the 3k words I need to write if I want to meet the NaNoWriMo deadline for the other fic I'm working on (different fandom)
> 
> I am SO SORRY to everyone in advance for any self-indulgent OOC-ness because I have only ever watched the Netflix show, several times over because I'm a bastard, but I have never played a game in my life that wasn't Pokemon and I haven't read the books. I am so sorry. Please be nice.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one where Eskel gets a friend

Witchers don’t have familiars.

They don’t. They’re nothing like the witches in the old stories. They have just enough magic for signs, but little more than that. They certainly don’t have enough magic to call a supernatural beast into being for the purpose of following them and enhancing their magic. Nothing follows them except death and destruction and the stench of blood and guts packed into the crevices of their armor too tightly to remove without stopping for longer than is generally safe.

But  _ something  _ follows him.

It’s small, he thinks, from how quietly it moves through the underbrush, but its feet skitter over the leaves when he cuts paths between the trees in fall on his way north. If he focuses hard enough on the thing behind him, he can just make out the  _ pitter-patter _ heartbeat, quick like a hummingbird. It doesn’t quite smell like much of anything, maybe lilac if he thinks on it long enough. He never sees it, never turning in the saddle fast enough before it’s gone again, disappearing in a quick rustle of the leaves. Sometimes he’s fast enough to catch the shape of a shadow, long and lithe, moving in the branches overhead.

Never more than that.

It should put him off. It does put him off.

Just...

Just not enough to change course. Not enough to stop and see if he can catch it. He’s thought about it, but he never quite manages to bring himself to it. He sets snares and traps for wild game when he works a long contract in the mountains, but never with the intent of catching his little friend, that’s what he’ll call it. 

He’s a Witcher. It’s clearly smaller than your average street dog.

But then size doesn’t always mean it will go down easily. He’s fought enough monsters to know that, has the scars to prove it.

Vesemir would be disappointed in him, he knows that. He’s let the matter lie for too long already.

Whatever it is, it’s been following him for months now. Since the spring thaws first reopened the passes and he left Kaer Morhen, he’d been on his own up until he wasn’t.

One day he’s turning in the heads of a bunch of drowners to the alderman, and the next he’s got the distinct feeling of being followed while he walks around the marketplace, restocking his wares. It’s a large city, but the people here are surprisingly kind. Probably something to do with a certain bard’s songs getting ahead of him, he thinks. A lot of things have been easier since that damned fool wormed his way into the lives of his Witchers.

He’s used to sniffing out trouble, trusting decades upon decades of training and hard-won instinct to identify a threat, so when the hairs on the back of his neck remain decidedly still, he can’t bring himself to ponder on the strange feeling any longer than that.

He’ll pack up his things, tend to his horse, and be on his merry way. Things don’t generally stick around once the item of their interest has made it clear that the interest is not mutual. Except for the bard. No, he’d remained firmly attached to Geralt from the moment they met, despite the Witcher’s attempts to distance them. Nevertheless, he doesn’t expect the source of the odd sensation to tag along once he passes back out the city gates, heading for the wilds and the next contract.

It’s still there in the edges of his vision when he tries to follow its movement in the brush, when the first hot days of summer roll in. It’s still there when the sun reaches its peak and the day seems to drag on and on and on, hotter than it has any business being. He’s taken a rare break in a meadow, shaded by a large oak standing at the edge of the clearing. There’s a gentle slope to the hill below the oak tree, and Scorpion seems happy to be able to graze at his leisure at the edges of the shade. He shuts his eyes and follows the sound of the little feet scrabbling over rough tree bark, the shake and rattle of leaves as it jumps between the branches. Distantly aware of the sound of a twig breaking somewhere overhead, he doesn’t think anything of it until he feels the  _ plonk _ of an acorn on his forehead.

The laugh pulls itself from his throat before he can stop it, and he’s smiling while he rolls the acorn in his palm. 

Once the long weeks of heat waves roll past them, giving way to the first bites of autumn, he expects it to leave him the next time he has to stop for supplies in a large city. There are certainly more interesting folk to follow around. The city is placed at a major trade crossroad, two popular roads and a river on the opposite side. Every new caravan coming up the road, every boat coming down the river, brings with it a new influx of characters.

It should have no need of him any longer.

Yet when he stables Scorpion at the inn’s stables and turns in for the night, he can feel familiar eyes on him though they still seem to evade his own.

It comes as no surprise when the sound of those little feet reaches his ears on the trail out of the city at the end of the week.

What’s more surprising is that three weeks later, in the pouring rain, after he’s made yet another mistake Vesemir will chastise him for, he sees cat-like eyes in the dark. Flopped over uselessly onto his side, bleeding out from a series of gashes in his side, he can’t help but think he still looks better than the beheaded fiend lying on the ground across from him. He’d just managed to deal the killing blow before he fell back against the tree, chest heaving for breath. He tried to crawl forward, tried to get to Scorpion, tied up several meters away where he would be safe from harm, but he’d lost too much blood already.

One arm outstretched, one arm curled around his stomach in a hopeless attempt to stop the bleeding, he’s too exhausted and strung out on potions to think clearly when those eyes creep into view, one bright gold, one bright green, a few scant inches above the layer of leaf litter on the muddy ground. He blinks once, twice, but when he reopens his eyes again, they’re gone and he’s left to his own devices in the dark.

Something cold nudges the fingers of his outstretched hand. It takes several tries, but finally he manages to open his eyes, finding that several strange things had happened while he’d been asleep. Scorpion is now tied to a tree only a few feet ahead of him, his head lowered slightly and one of his hind legs cocked. He’s sleeping perfectly soundly for a horse that knows better than to be walked by just anyone in the cold, dark woods.

Only the woods are no longer dark and cold.

A fire, albeit a rather small one, glows halfway between horse and Witcher. It will die out before dawn, but it is enough to light the immediate area. He’s reminded suddenly of the thing that had touched his hand and originally brought him back to wakefulness. It’s Swallow.

The other potions have worn off already to the point he doesn’t even blink when he uncorks the bottle to take a large gulp of the stuff. Immediately, he can feel the flesh beginning to knit together again, the blood slowing its commitment to ooze out between his fingers. It’s a long while before he feels well enough to push himself up, leaning back against the tree, longer still before he can force himself over to Scorpion to retrieve his kit and stitch himself up.

A cautious sniff of the air, a quick scan of his surroundings, and all he can pick up is the faint smell of lilacs. 

Two hours past dawn and he’s back in the saddle again, leaving behind the strange makeshift camp and the feeling that perhaps his little follower may not be so little after all, at least not all of the time. He runs through his mental list of shape changers and magical creatures, but nothing seems to fit. He tries not to dwell on it for too long, there are more important things to worry about than something that seems keen on keeping him alive for whatever reason.

Yet between his own skill and a lack of truly dangerous contracts, there comes no need for them to make another appearance for several weeks.

Not until he makes another mistake.

The game on this particular stretch of land is scarce, and the local towns are too strapped to have anything to spare beyond what they’ve already scraped together to pay him for killing a wyvern that’s been terrorizing their goats. He’s already waived off the idea of payment, these people have already apparently suffered enough, but he still needs to eat while he tracks the damn beast. 

He’s only just come back from yet another fruitless hunt in the woods to find Scorpion nudging a pile of three rabbits, their necks clearly broken, where they’d been deposited by the saddlebags. He shakes his head but accepts the gift for what it is, muttering his thanks to the wind in the hopes that it reaches the party responsible. It’s not much, but it’s better than he’d been managing for himself. It’s enough to get him the rest of the way up the mountain, all the way to the wyvern’s lair. 

It’s far from an easy fight. It never goes well when they have an egg to protect, but of course, that’s his luck. It explains why the wyvern’s been increasingly aggressive in its attacks. She’d been storing up nutrients to produce a healthy egg and now she’s determined to defend it. Only he can’t allow it to stay here, not so close to innocent folks, not after it’s already caused so much death.

Only they’re a dangerous opponent on a good day without an egg to protect. Aard brings it down well enough, and quick slashes keep its stinger from reaching its mark, but this is its territory, and the narrow, rocky ledges do not make for a fair fight.

He’s not expecting it when a small blast of fire comes from behind him. It startles both Witcher and wyvern, but the Witcher recovers faster, swinging his sword into the meat of its sinewy neck. At once the tail whips around in retaliation, the great beast screeching in pain as the blood drips heavily from its wound. He swings again, downwards with both hands, and manages a well-placed hit, cleaving the venomous trident from the rest of the tail. His ears ring with its horrendous cries, backstepping rapidly into its den.

It’s almost worse that it’s cornered itself now into the tight space, striking out with its teeth and using what remains of its tail as a wet sort of bludgeon. But armed with a silver sword and Golden Oriole, he can feel the fight approaching its natural end. 

The wyvern recoils its head back with a hiss of air, eyes narrowed, and he readies himself for its next strike. It comes in fast, and he rolls out of the way, prepared to parry another strike, but just as before, out of nowhere, another ball of fire hurtles through the dark of the cave against the side of the wyvern’s head. While it shakes its head from pain, it is blind to the silver sword returning to the wound in its neck. It only takes two more cuts to sever the head from its monstrous body. It feels wrong almost to destroy the life of the unborn wyvern, but it’s impossible to move it anyway, relocate it elsewhere where it might not cause so much trouble.

Like before, when he steps out of the cave again, the wyvern’s head dangling from where he’s strapped it to his back, the weak smell of lilacs greets him but nothing else.

Months have gone by and all he knows is that it’s small, but not always small, can’t be if it can lead Scorpion through the woods at night; it has one gold eye and one green eye, both cat-like; it possesses some ability to use fire. And absolutely nothing in his training can direct him to  _ what _ it actually is.

He gets a lucky break after several days of heavy rain. He’s made a meager camp for himself and his horse, their backs to a collection of large rocks at the bottom of a cliff, stacked together enough to provide a shelter from the rain even if they don’t do much to keep out the cold. The hunting here is not so bad as it was before the wyvern and he has a small collection of rabbits and wild potatoes to cook for dinner. Feeling quite satisfied with himself, sleep comes surprisingly easily.

What’s more surprising though is the collection of tracks he finds the next morning. A little ring of muddy paws, like a dog or a cat curling up to sleep, marks the outside of his bedroll, where it would have been pulled up over his chest. Something about it makes him laugh. They’re such small prints. If not for the fact that  _ somehow _ this creature, whatever it is, is capable of manipulating fire to some degree, he would be utterly unafraid of it. Not to say he is afraid of it. Because he isn’t. It’s just  _ so small _ he can’t bring himself to be afraid.

Vesemir would be so disappointed.

When the snow comes, he’s already well on his way to Kaer Morhen. The nights should be cold, the sort of cold that leaves a man wishing he’d left weeks earlier than he had, but he never finds that to be the case. He shivers during the day when a particularly strong wind catches him, but at night, he’s kept almost blissfully warm.

It shouldn’t be as easy as it is for his little shadow to hide itself when they break through the forest into the wide plains that lie before the keep, but somehow he can never quite pinpoint the creature when he turns in his saddle. Scorpion walks on completely unbothered.

It’s not until they reach the wards around the keep that the thought occurs to him. The wards keep the unwanted out. No monsters or demons can make their home in the old castle, not without tearing down the wards first. A gentle squeeze of his legs and Scorpion steps forwards over the invisible barrier, and he doesn’t know what he’s expecting, but it’s definitely not the sad mewling of a cat.

Like a kitten locked on the opposite side of a glass holding tank for live fish at the market, a little white cat with a single black patch over its green eye is pawing at the air, its long, bushy tail swirling behind it. It meows and drops into a neat little sit when he makes eye contact. He can’t help it when he wheels Scorpion around to circle the lonely creature. He reaches down with one arm, and instantly it clambers up, really quite careful with its claws though it didn’t have to with all his layers, before it settles in front of him, little paws perched on the horn of the saddle.

He scratches behind its ear, by its green eye and smiles at the way it pushes into the touch.

By the time he finally reaches the ruined keep, sliding off Scorpion’s back to take him into the stables, the cat now perched around his shoulders, he is well aware that he is the last to arrive.

Vesemir finds him first, a storm in his eyes, arms crossed over his chest. “Out of all of you, I have to say that you were the last one I expected to come home with a cat demon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I have a little more written for a possible chapter 2, but honestly I should....probably...maybe finish up my NaNoWriMo fic first
> 
> Who knows? Leave a kudos or a comment please. Sway me. I'm notoriously fickle. And scatterbrained.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one where the cat gets a name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, apologies to everyone for any OOC-ness. I don't play the games or read the books, but I do read a lot on the fandom WIKI and watched the Netflix show more times than what ought to be healthy. (is it time yet for the next season?)

It shouldn’t feel like news to hear Vesemir call the cat that is little more than a ball of white fur a demon, but it does. The word feels too powerful for something so small and innocent looking, but he’s seen plenty of death caused by things that ordinarily looked quite harmless. But still, a  _ demon _ .

Said demon doesn’t make a peep more than a purr when he pulls it off his shoulders to hold it ahead of him, blinking up owlishly at the older Witcher. Its body hangs long and relaxed. Its tail never stops swishing.

“It doesn’t mean any harm. It’s saved my life more than once on the Path, helped me fight a wyvern protecting its clutch.” Perhaps Vesemir could live without the knowledge that he required a cat to bring him life-saving potions until another time, it stings enough to have to admit that this little creature helped him fight something as devastating as a wyvern. “It’s had plenty of opportunities to kill me since it started following me around.”

Vesemir shut his eyes, his left hand coming up at the same time to rub his temples. “Just,” he flicked his right hand behind, “just get inside. We’ll deal with your new pet later. I’m getting too old for this.”

As soon as he sets foot into the kitchen, he’s accosted by Lambert. “Oh, fuck, did I miss the memo that we’d be bringing pets home this year? Knew I should've brought Aiden.”

Lambert reaches over to pet the cat behind its ear where it's been returned atop Eskel’s shoulders, but it hilariously bobs and weaves its head constantly out of reach, ears back, before it climbs onto Eskel's head. No matter how careful it tries to be with its claws, he’d rather not add to an already significant collection of scars that traverse his face. He can see the vein pulsing in Lambert’s temple, the tightening of his jaw, and he knows it’s only a matter of time before the young wolf does something utterly stupid. HE prefers that it not happen in such close proximity to his face. After a hard glare, Lambert finally backs away with his hands up, and Eskel pulls the cat up and out of his hair, letting it curl around his neck once more. 

He’s nearly made it through the kitchen and to what now functions as the main dining hall to see if he can’t find Geralt as well before Lambert tries something so utterly stupid Eskel’s wholly unprepared to stop it from happening.

It all unfolds roughly at the same time that Jaskier spots the cat, because of course now Lambert’s snide comment about bringing home pets makes sense, oohing and awwing and making grabby hands towards it. “Oh, a kitty, come here, come here! I simply  _ must _ meet this beautiful little lady.”

The bard has barely stood up from the bench, seated across from his favorite white-haired Witcher, when Lambert runs his hand down the cat’s back, sliding the full length of its tail between his fingers. It leaps down to the stone floor and with surprising speed, flicks its tail up like a scorpion, a little ball of blue fire growing until, with another flick, it hurtles towards Lambert’s face. The cat is still yowling, teeth bared, and if Eskel has already made a habit of cataloging everything he knows about it, it's definitely increasing in size as well, standing at roughly the same height as a common hunting spaniel, the likes of which he’d seen in the more southerly estates, when Lambert just manages to raise his arms in time, hissing at the heat behind the blue flames, where they burst upon striking his leather gauntlets.

Eskel’s not sure who’s more relieved he hadn’t taken them off for the night. They don’t generally expect to need their armor, not here in the keep. Geralt’s entire body has stilled, covered as it is in loose woolen layers and soft trousers, having long since set aside his traveling leathers. 

Jaskier sinks back into his seat with wide eyes. “Ooh, bad kitty, you know what, you can stay right over there. Very far from me, thank you.” He whispers conspiratorially to the Witcher across from him as though the Witcher in the doorway can't hear him, "Geralt, why does your brother have a  _ demon cat?" _

“You deserved that, don’t even deny it,” Eskel huffs at Lambert, bending down to retrieve the cat, who is still glaring daggers at the youngest Witcher, its tail still raised to launch another fireball if need be. Immediately on seeing the big, bulky Witcher stoop down though, its ears perk up, the hair on its back goes flat, and it jumps into his chest, all purrs and soft body language as soon as his arms curl around it, once again returned to its wonderfully petite size. “See, wouldn’t harm a fly, now would you?”

It’s certainly a sight to behold. The biggest Witcher with the most dramatic facial scarring curled around a little white cat with mismatched eyes. 

“Fought a wyvern with you, didn’t it?” Geralt snorts. He's not even looking at Eskel when he scoffs, tearing off a piece of bread and popping it into his mouth. “Hardly harmless in my book.”

But the cat remains perfectly harmless all through dinner even if Eskel has to serve himself because the youngest wolf still refuses to make nice with the snoozing creature. Even though Vesemir, hearing the report of its reported attack, sides with the others. Lambert did provoke the poor thing, and it seems quite content to curl up on Eskel's lap when they all retire to the library to exchange stories and a few rounds of ale. 

While the three brothers boast about their best hunts, Jaskier finds a shred of courage in himself. Eskel keeps a cautious eye on him but doesn't stop his storytelling when the bard kneels beside his armchair. Moving almost glacially slowly, he reaches out a hand, palm down, fingers loose, holding it out in front of the sleeping cats face. Even though it startles the moment his fingers come into contact with its long white whiskers, its eyes cross together. and the bard can't help the laughter that bubbles up in his throat. He's too busy laughing to see the cat creep up under his hand and the laughs abruptly turn into an inhuman screech when it presses its head against his palm. Its purring is loud in the silence that falls over the Witchers.

Tears glimmer at the corners of the bard's eyes when he looks over to his Witcher. "Geralt, Geralt. You have to pet her. She's  _ so _ sweet."

"I beg to differ," Lambert grumbles, hiding his frown with a large gulp of ale.

"Cats don't like me," the White Wolf says, unmoved by the quiver in the bard's bottom lip.

It's quickly replaced by a triumphant grin, which is then replaced by a frown and a hasty apology when the cat mewls at being abandoned as Jaskier clumsily rises to his feet, intent on dragging the Witcher over. "Ah, but you forget, she's a  _ demon _ cat. Besides, she seems to like Eskel well enough. Can't see any reason why she wouldn't like you."

There's no stopping the bard though once he's got an idea in his head, and eventually Geralt is knelt beside Eskel, his wrist in Jaskier's tight grip. They're all holding their breath, but true to form, the cat sniffs him once before treating him to the same easy affection she'd given to the bard, almost falling off Eskel's lap twice chasing the hands stroking her ears.

Jaskier almost treats the Witchers to another happy screech at the soft smile that rises to Geralt's face. He has to fan himself with a hand as it is.

"How'd you know it's a girl?" Eskel asks suddenly.

"I have a good sense for these things. She's a beautiful little lady, yes, she is," he coos, pulling a loud purr from the feline as he scratches under her chin. She practically  _ melts  _ off Eskel's lap, puddling at his feet, long limbs stretching out towards the bard, long tail curling between his legs. She looks quite happy to abandon both Witchers in favor of their beloved bard, and for his part, Jaskier is quite pleased to draw her fully into his lap, basking in the pleasant rumble of her purring. 

There's a soft look on Geralt's face, and Eskel knows well enough not to comment on it, lest he shatter the peaceful moment.

It's Vesemir, because who else would it be, who breaks them out of their reverie, dropping a large book onto the small table beside his tall, wingback armchair, before he settles back into the cushions. He taps the cover twice once he's certain he has the attention of all three wolves, the bard,  _ and _ the cat, who's since returned to Eskel's shoulders. Lowered into a crouch, her whiskers are at just the right level to tickle his scars and he has to fight the urge to yank her onto his lap instead just to stop the shivers that race up his spine every time she moves her head or scents the air. In the end he settles for holding a hand between their faces, surprised when she doesn't immediately press against his palm.

He knows she's intelligent, she has to be to have known which potion to pull from Scorpion's saddlebags, but it still shocks him to see it displayed so prominently. He can almost see the gears turning as she watches the head of their little family.

"Whatever she is, it's older and rarer than anything in our bestiaries, but perhaps another Witcher has come across her ilk in the past and written it down in one of the journals. Bard, perhaps those records might be of interest to you if you would not mind looking for any references to a cat demon."

The bard perks up, cornflower blue eyes bright, and he nods his head so vigorously it's a wonder how it remains attached to his shoulders. "Of course, of course, that sounds brilliant. I know your lot aren’t big talkers, but maybe you’re better writers."

"Then it's settled. I trust Geralt warned you that this keep has no need of idle hands. There is too much work to be done simply to prevent it from complete ruin. You can add researching to your afternoon tasks. I still expect you to help in the kitchen in the mornings." 

Jaskier nods again, a good deal more slowly. Clearly the bard's already settled into some form of routine since he's been at the keep, and Eskel is reminded once more how late he was in coming.

Vesemir stares at him for several moments, cold and unflinching, but Eskel knows better than to break. Even if there are a cat's whiskers still tickling his palm. "As for you, the cat stays with you at all times, under no circumstances is it to be left unattended, am I clear?"

He answers with a stiff "Yes, Sir" even as he thinks to himself that it won't be a problem to keep the cat with him. She's hardly strayed from his side once since he unwittingly picked her up all those months ago.

  
  


* * *

  
  


"You have to name her something. I can't just call her Cat. It feels weird," Lambert grunts one night. He's dangling a down feather from an old pillow on a piece of string in front of the cat. Despite his crude attempt at making it appear alive with jerky, fluttering movements, the cat remains totally unfazed where she's once again curled up in Eskel's lap. For someone who claims to hate cats, for one, he’s been seeing a Cat Witcher for years, and two, he’s trying awful hard to entice this one to play.

They're in the library, ostensibly keeping Jaskier company while he reads journal entry after journal entry by long-dead Witchers, warbling about how lonely it is with Geralt off having a Talk with Vesemir. Eskel's diligently actually trying to help the card by reading a few of the journals himself in the comfort of an armchair by the fireplace rather than the broad table where Jaskier has dragged crates full of old journals, but predictably Lambert makes no such illusions. The cat has clearly decided she's the sort to hold a grudge, and he can't say he blames her. He certainly has no plans of stopping her from retaliating, at least up until she looks like she'll summon fire again, but that's due more to the dire need to preserve books that exist nowhere else than any need to protect his brother from his own stupidity.

Before Eskel can even get the sounds out, Jaskier is speaking over him, gesturing with his quill quite emphatically, "And  _ no _ insect names. I know you named your horse Scorpion and Geralt named his horse after a  _ fish _ , but surely one of you has a better naming scheme."

He looks over at Lambert who immediately grins and his head drops to the papers with a groan. "Do I even want to know? You know what, don't answer that. A bug name is better than anything that comes out of your mouth. Out with it, Eskel."

Eskel lifts the journal from his view to sneak a peek at the cat, who has now turned to look up at him with those haunting mismatched eyes. "I was going to name her Scorpion 2," he admits quietly, holding out his hand. He grins when she lowers her chin into his palm, eyes sliding shut. “But Cricket rolls off the tongue a lot more easily.”

"Better than Flea," the bard chuckles and returns to his reading.

"I still think you could have  _ at least _ considered the name I would have suggested."

"Oh, I highly doubt that, but go ahead.  _ Wow _ me."

"Princess Honey Pot,” Lambert declares rather proudly, waving his feather on a string with a dramatic flourish over his head. “Get it? You could even call her Honey for short."

"Wow, color me amazed, a euphemism for the fairer sex, how original and wholly unlike you. Seriously, Lambert, you've outdone yourself." The bard’s tone is dryer than a desert.

"You like Cricket though, don't you, huh, girl?" Eskel doesn’t pay the other any mind, just murmurs and scratches the cat under the chin, smiling as she slumps boneless against his thighs. He can feel her purring deep in his bones, and it takes quite a bit of effort to refocus on the handwriting in front of him.

Jaskier is barely awake by the time Geralt and Vesemir come to find them in the library. Eskel’s hardly in better condition. He can’t be sure how many times he’s read and reread the page in front of him, but he knows for certain that he couldn’t recite a single word of it if asked. At his feet though, Lambert and Cricket are both lying on their stomachs. The cat resembles a bread loaf, all her feet neatly tucked underneath her, her chin resting on the soft pelt beneath her. Lambert looks like something else entirely like an overgrown, ugly caterpillar. He’s caught halfway between kneeling and lying prostrate across the floor, his ass in the air, but his chin pillowed on the tops of his hands.

“Are you having a staring contest with a cat?” Geralt asks.

Without even looking away, Lambert chucks a dagger from  _ somewhere _ in the other Witcher’s direction, grumbling low in his throat, “Don’t distract me.”

And really, dumber things have happened in these halls.

Geralt simply shakes his head and takes his bard upstairs to rest, bidding the others goodnight.

It passes midnight, and because Lambert apparently is incapable of doing it, Eskel tosses another log into the fire.

He must have fallen asleep at least once because Vesemir is no longer in his chair when he opens his eyes. A quick glance towards the floor and at the very least, Lambert has settled into what has to be a more comfortable position, his legs stretched out behind him. It’s a better look than his raised ass, that’s for sure. Years and years of meditation practice and  _ this  _ is what Lambert uses it for.

To win a staring contest with a demon cat.

Eskel doesn’t even think  _ normal  _ cats need to blink, let alone this one.

But Vesemir said not to leave the cat unattended so what else can he do but settle in for what looks to be the longest, most useless pissing match that the keep’s ever seen? He drags over a small footstool, kicks up his feet, and pulls the edges of a large blanket closer to himself, letting his own eyes fall shut even if Lambert and the cat seem determined to resist the urge to shut their eyes themselves.

By dawn, when Jaskier stops by on his way before heading to the kitchens to find breakfast, he finds no winners, no losers. Just two sleeping Witchers and a cat happily dozing on a warm lap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The cat totally wins.
> 
> Also #WhysItSpicy #SpicyCat
> 
> Leave a kudos or a comment. Or tell me to YEET myself back to the other fic I'm still deplorably behind on for NaNoWriMo.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which the Witchers realize just how nice it is to cuddle with a warm cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm pretty freaking far behind on NaNoWriMo with my other fic but maybe I can relieve some of the guilt if I make up the difference on this one? IDK but worth a shot

Cricket the cat takes to life in Kaer Morhen surprisingly well. Eskel does his level best to keep track of her, and honestly it isn't as though she's gone from his side for longer than a handful of minutes all that often, but still. He feels like he should be concerned by the number of times she trots into the library at his heels, moving ahead of him to deposit a mouse she must have caught in one of the cellars they use for cold storage at Vesemir's feet. This one is decidedly larger than the last. She’s fast and accurate enough as a hunter that she apparently only needs him to blink once before she’s caught something.

"Aw, she likes you," Jaskier croons, having looked up from tuning his lute in time to watch the exchange. One of Cricket's ears flicks towards him and she twitches her tail, but she doesn't move from where she's seated herself in front of the old Witcher.

Vesemir nudges the dead mouse with the tip of his boot and the cat skitters back a few steps, startled by the movement, ears flat against her head as she looks between Eskel and Vesemir. She takes up the mouse again and brings it closer before she curls up behind Eskel's legs, clearly confident that he'll protect her from another kick.

The old Witcher sighs and runs both hands over his face. "This is getting old, cat."

He makes to kick the mouse into the fire to discard it, but the bard's voice stops him, "If you don't want her to bring you something even larger, Melitele forbid, you may want to consider thanking her for this little gift. Just a thought."

"I am not thanking her for bringing in  _ vermin _ . Dead or otherwise."

Then he kicks the little mouse into the flames with a shower of sparks and all of them recoil at the smell of burning mouse. Thankfully it dissipates soon enough, a mouse is still a mouse no matter how large, but when Vesemir glances back at the cat upon settling back into his chair, it’s curled up on its Witcher's lap, yes, but its green and gold eyes are locked onto his with an unsettling intensity. He's not afraid, but he is decidedly unsettled. He doesn’t know that he wants to know what’s running through its mind.

Jaskier's warning proves true when the next night, Cricket leads the way into the library, her head held high to keep her prize from brushing the ground. She's definitely bigger than she was the night before too, but he tries not to think about it too long, how easily she seems capable of adjusting her size.

He has no idea how she managed the catch. He'd been fixing part of the roof, perched on the slick tiles rather precariously. It had taken every ounce of concentration to keep himself attached to the roof rather than splattered across the courtyard below. He never sees it until he's ducking back under the tarp stretched over the gap in the tiles, but Cricket has a massive eagle clenched between her jaws. It's still breathing, but only just. By the time he realizes he's been staring, the bird is beyond saving. He can only shrug and let her keep her catch to bring down for dinner. He only just manages to convince her to leave it in the kitchen to retrieve after supper on the way to the library. It wouldn't do to have her carrying it around all day, not when he still had to muck out the stalls.

She appears immensely proud, her little chest puffed out, when she sits on the arm of Eskel's chair. She's small again, and although no one says it, he knows they've all noticed it too.

Jaskier watches from the periphery, determined to make decent headway in at least cataloging the journals if nothing else before he leaves with the spring. Eskel catches his eye and the bark winks like they’re sharing some secret. The smirk on his lips absolutely reads “I told you so” like a burning brand while he waits for the old Witcher to address the elephant in the room.

"Thank you," Vesemir forces out between clenched teeth, and the cat bows her head before crawling into Eskel's lap and promptly dozing off.

She doesn't bring in more dead animals after that.

* * *

He doesn’t admit aloud, but a little voice in the back of his mind had feared that the cat would abandon him for one of the others. Clearly she has an interest in Witchers and Geralt is the most famous of them all, granted, not always for the best reasons, but the reasons are better now that he’s somehow acquired the unfailing loyalty of a bard who can’t keep his mouth shut for longer than five minutes at a time, if that.

Yet, it never fails that he smiles when he hears the little heart beating behind him. Soft pads don’t make much noise against the stone, compared to leaves, and she’s deadly silent moving through the snow. She follows him around on his chores and when the three wolf pups head out to clear the courtyard with shovels, she’s right there with them.

He has to laugh at the sight. He and his three brothers all work up a sweat pushing several feet of snow out of the keep, and she’s just sitting there in her own private little patch of grass, her innate body heat melts the snow several inches around her and a little trail of pawprints shows the line of her path where she’d followed him before settling where she’s sat now.

Jaskier is perched on top of the low wall above her, his hands shoved into his armpits, his nose cherry red.

“If only you were bigger, perhaps we wouldn’t have to clear all this out by hand,” Eskel shouts at the cat before he returns to the grueling work ahead. They could use Igni, but Vesemir had said something about building character and he would know if they tried to take a shortcut. He glances back just long enough to watch her yawn, white teeth gleaming even at this distance.

They work in silence again, apparently a true northern winter is what it takes to silence a bard. An absolutely overdone, drawn out, full on  _ moan _ forces every Witcher to whip their heads around at the noise. Eskel, despite never turning fast enough to catch sight of the cat while on the Path, still seems just a fraction of a second too slow. He only catches the final glimpse of Cricket’s long white tail slipping past the collar of Jaskier’s woolen tunic. The bard’s jaw has dropped and he’s still sighing pleasurably. He looks absolutely sinful.

Until he cries.

But only happiness,  _ pure  _ happiness, can be scented in the air. “Oh, by all the gods, you’re never getting this cat back. I will  _ fight you _ ,” the bard gasps and shuts his eyes to moan again.

Eskel highly doubts the bard’s words even as he blushes bright red at the noises coming from the troubadour. His voice is broken and he looks half a second away from slipping off the wall completely from the way his hips have tipped forwards, his shoulders back.

_ Another  _ moan escapes the bard and Eskel can see what it does to Geralt. He can also see Lambert making mock gagging faces behind the white-haired Witcher.

“She’s like a  _ furnace _ . I’ve never been this warm in my life. I could  _ die  _ here and I would thank her.”

And that’s apparently the last straw for Geralt.

Jaskier whines pathetically when Geralt, well, perhaps  _ manhandling _ isn’t the right word for it, but that’s what it looks like when the Witcher firmly lifts him by his upper arms and shakes him out. Cricket lands on the ground below the bard’s feet. She shakes her head and trots over to Eskel, winding herself around his legs, as Geralt drags Jaskier back into the keep. Jaskier doesn’t argue much from where he’s pressed himself against the Witcher.

A snowball strikes him in the side of the head and he nearly falls over trying not to step on Cricket when his feet get tangled up underneath him. He manages it, but a second snowball to his shoulder knocks him the rest of the way off balance.

“Just because Geralt’s gone and fucked off, probably to fuck his bard, doesn’t mean you get to ditch me to do whatever it is you do with your damn demon cat,” Lambert grunts.

It takes the rest of the afternoon to finish shoveling the snow out of the first half of the courtyard where most of the permanent training equipment is set up, even if Geralt doesn’t come down to help them again for an hour and when he does, it’s without the bard. They don’t need eyes to know what happened up there. They’d rather not even have noses sometimes.

Cricket takes up the spot that Jaskier had left behind, simply watching the Witchers while they toil.

With a groan, Eskel takes the first step down into the lower courtyard, rolling out his shoulders. He knows it’s going to wreck him, finishing this all in one day, but it needs to be done. They have a rare break in the weather coming and it will be good to train outside under a warm sun before they're forced to shelter for the weeks of snowstorms that batter the keep in the depths of winter.

It isn’t strange for Cricket to brush up against his leg and press her head against his palm when he isn’t paying attention. She does it often enough when they're all curled up in the library in the evenings.

It  _ is _ strange, however, that she’s able to do it while he’s still standing.

He doesn’t turn his head, half-afraid to look as though she’ll disappear again, but there she is, leaning her weight against his leg. His whole body feels like it’s vibrating from the force of her purring she's so large. She doesn’t even have to reach up to press her head into his hand. Her shoulder is even with the middle of his thigh, she’s roughly the size of a large dog, but more heavily built, thick forelimbs and powerful hindquarters. Gone is the meek little pet, and in its place, a true predator.

She doesn’t linger at his side for long before she hops down the rest of the way, the tip of her tail covered in dancing blue flames. Her intelligence is evident in the way she walks back and forth across the courtyard, her tail swinging from side to side behind her. Within minutes, the lower courtyard is cleared of snow, and she returns to sit in front of Eskel, once more shrunken down to the size of an ordinary house cat, the flame on her tail now extinguished.

“You couldn’t have just done that from the beginning,” Lambert rages, throwing his shovel to the ground, after warring over the thought of snapping it over his knee if his white knuckled grasp is anything to go by. He leaves, kicking up small piles of snow and muttering "fucking cats" under his breath the whole time.

Lambert fires Aard at him over his shoulder, easy enough to dodge, when he shoots after him, "It builds character, little lamb!"

Eskel watches him go, perfectly happy to offer the cat a ride back on his shoulders. Geralt falls into step alongside him, reaching up a hand for her to sniff. The smile comes easy when she transfers herself to his shoulders. It’s funny to see how her coat matches his hair. If not for the black eyepatch and the green eye, she might have been the spitting image of him, albeit in cat form. Jaskier would probably have a field day writing a song about that. A Witcher turned into a cat.

Eskel hopes he never has to hear such a song. There’s only one mage he can think of that’s powerful enough to perform that level of transformative magic  _ and _ be able to undo it, but even Geralt would have to do something truly stupid to force her to do something that  _ inspired _ . Still, knowing what he does about the three of them, he wouldn’t put it past Geralt, or hell, even Jaskier, doing something to piss her off.

* * *

  
  


She wants to help. That much is clear. For whatever reason, she wants to help him.

Eskel's been tasked with exercising the horses despite the snowfall. It's light enough, but with four horses, especially four horses used to the demands of  _ Witcher _ riders, he knows he will be stuck out in the cold well past noon. He would complain, but last night Geralt brought in a large buck from hunting and since Lambert is stuck on kitchen duty, it's his job to butcher it. Things could be worse for Eskel, but he would take cold hands over hands shoved elbow deep into deer huts any day.

Lambert's horse is surprisingly easy to exercise. He's a pretty bay gelding with a wide white blaze and a gentle disposition. It's shocking that he accepts a rider as gruff as Lambert, but it shouldn't be. Lambert may be gruff with people and downright crass, but he takes great care of his horse and his tack. He accepts the halter readily, nosing his pockets for treats he doesn't have, but he quickly gets on with trotting in circles and whatever else Eskel asks of him.

Roach gives him a little more difficulty only because she is sassy and spirited as most mares tend to be. She enjoys games and testing the patience of Witchers that aren't Geralt, likes seeing how much she can get away with before she has to acquiesce. Even so, she has no more love of the cold than he does and she settles into the routine eventually, eager to return to her warm stall and fresh food.

It isn't until he gets to Jaskier's chosen mount, a tall grey gelding, that he starts to register just how cold he is. All the horses have been kind enough to simply follow along the loose tug of the rope on their halters, gently guiding them in wide arcs. His hands are warm in their thick gloves, leather outsides and fur lined insides, but he has nothing keeping his ears warm.

Nothing until he feels a familiar weight settling around his shoulders. It shouldn’t come as a shock after he’s already seen her warm the bard up past the point of social decency, but now that he has her actively warming him, he honestly can’t blame the bard at all for his reaction. His knees almost buckle under his weight, his head fills with such a pleasurable fog. Her soft fur tickles the back of his neck and the rhythmic purr is almost enough to put him to sleep where he stands. It's maddening how good it feels, like all the aches and pains he's ever felt walking the Path just  _ melt away _ .

No wonder Jaskier moaned like a damn whore. It felt  _ good _ . Amazing? Euphoric? Rapturous? Beyond all concept of imagining? Who is he kidding trying to find a word to describe how it feels to have all the hurts taken away, even the deepest seated aches, wounds so old but so devastating they could never be forgotten, all of those just….washed away?

He's not a bard, he's a Witcher.

He’s a  _ Witcher _ . He’s been trained better than this, but it still takes a tremendous amount of self control to straighten his legs out underneath him and a conscious effort to convince himself to move.

He feels safer in Kaer Morhen than anywhere else, but this, this beautiful pocket of warmth that she weaves around him, makes him feel untouchable.

All he wants to do is sink into that blissful warmth. Scorpion’s a good horse, he won’t mind it if he only takes him out for a few circles around the yard, just a quick run so he can take a little nap. Just a little one and no one would be any wiser.

Of course, that's when Vesemir finds him.

A swift kick to the bottom of his boot has him rolling onto all fours before springing up into a fighting stance. Upon realizing he's been found out, Eskel just huffs out a laugh, reaching down a hand for Cricket to climb up his arm and resettle himself around his shoulders. The old Witcher simply shakes his head.

"Need I explain to you  _ why _ it might be a bad idea to let a demon with fire enchantments near a very flammable stable?" Vesemir groaned.

"She was just trying to help me keep warm."

"You put on layers or get moving to keep warm. You don't bring fires into flammable structures, especially not uncontrolled ones."

As if disagreeing with the other Witcher on his assessment that she's  _ uncontrolled _ , the cat exhales sharply and turns up her nose, colorful eyes sliding shut.

* * *

It's nice now that she's given up all attempts to keep herself hidden. It was nice before, sleeping in the woods in open places, even as the fall settled in, he'd never been cold, even after his fires died in the night. But it's different now.

She doesn't wait for him to fall asleep anymore before she curls up alongside him. Nor is she gone with the coming dawn. It's not often he gets the chance to sleep in. Between the work that must be done to maintain the keep and keep the winter firmly on the other side of the walls and the imminent risk of Lambert doing something as dumb as bursting into his rooms with a bucket of ice cold water, he tends to sleep with one eye open anyway.

But still, sometimes he's an early riser, waking before the first streamers of light dance across the mountaintops. He likes those mornings best. When he can lie in bed and look at what a strange turn his life has taken.

She wakes slowly on those mornings. She sleeps in a ball atop his chest most nights, and last night was no different. When she realizes he's awake today though, she crawls forward, back arched as she stretches out her forelimbs, revealing sharp claws only inches from his face, but he knows she won't hurt him. A gentle tap to her nose she returns with an incredibly soft press of her paws to the scars on his face. She blinks those lovely mismatched eyes at him. It's almost like she's asking him a question. He knows that look, the careful tilt of her head.

"It's a long story, girl, and not one I'm sure you want to hear."

He tries to pull her paw away, the smile gone from his face, but apparently she's having none of his sorrow today.

She tugs her foot away, yes, but she creeps further forwards to bump her head against cheek, purring against the torn skin. She radiates with a pleasant warmth and it's so easy to mistake it for something like love. He almost believes it. When he wraps his arms around her, turning onto his side, it certainly feels like love. Love and acceptance.

She doesn't pull away from her spot under his chin for the remainder of the morning, and that pleasant warmth doesn't leave his bones until well into the afternoon, when she's finally forced to leave his side so he can practice sparring against his brothers.

If he prays that he gets to keep this aspect of her to himself, that he should be the only one to enjoy her company during the long nights, then that is his business and no one else's. 

* * *

Geralt stumbles up the stairs clutching his side not because the injuries there hurt the most but because it's where it's easiest to distract himself from the other aches and pains that plague him tonight, pressing his fingers deeper into the purple blooms on his pale skin. He hates having to stumble back into their rooms like this, knows that it frightens Jaskier, at least out on the Path, but it feels different in Kaer Morhen, where only his fellow wolves can hurt him. He doesn't think about the wargs that traverse the wilds beyond the wards though it will be time soon enough for them to go out hunting again.

"You look like shit. Geralt, why do you look like shit?"

Naturally Jaskier is halfway to standing as soon as the door opens. It's a good habit to have even if he needs to be faster than that the next time they take a room in a less than friendly town. A halfhearted wave of his hand and the bard settles back into his seat while Geralt sets about disrobing. He really ought to bathe or at least wipe himself down, but frankly he's exhausted just by the effort of remaining on his feet.

"Eskel and Lambert tag teamed." Geralt winces, his shirt getting caught on his shoulder and pulling on a nasty bruise forming around the joint. Bastards had gotten lucky. Lambert damn near broke his shoulder slamming him that hard into the wall. "Thought I could beat them."

"And they beat you into a pulp instead? Melitele's tits, and you couldn't have just yielded, could you? Stay here." He shakes his head, rolling his eyes, and pulls on a light coat. It's considerably warmer inside the keep than it is outside, but it's still far from a day in the sun in Toussaint.

Geralt grunts from where he'd slumped face first onto the bed. "Where're you going?" The blankets muffle his voice a bit so he lifts his head to try to follow Jaskier's movement but drops it back to the bed with a groan. Everything  _ hurts _ .

"To see if I can't convince Eskel to relinquish his cat for a minute."

The fuck's a cat gonna do?

It doesn't take long for the bard to reappear in the doorway, the happy smell of peach blossoms circulating around him, and the less distinct smell of lilacs. The absence of gooseberries eases the tension from his muscles, but it still keeps the reminder of magic, powerful magic, in the forefront of his mind. Jaskier mumbles something in his ear, but he's distracted by the soft brush of hair at his side, and then the cat is settling into the small of his back, a calming, grounding weight. And at once, it's like everything he's ever known drifts away, and he's surrounded by inexplicable bliss. He feels so impossibly  _ warm _ .

He can't tell how much time has passes the next time he can keep a conscious thought in his mind, but he's never felt this rested after a short nap. Yet Jaskier is still in the same clothes from earlier and though perhaps another log has been added to the fire, the candles at the desk where Jaskier's working on his lyrics don't seem to have burned much lower than when he'd first shut his eyes. Geralt's still trying to make sense of time when Jaskier finally notices he's awake.

In a flurry of motion, the bard's kneeling at the bedside, chin on the backs of his hands, just smiling so sweetly and softly at the Witcher that he can't help himself from learning over to kiss the man. Twin smiles adorn both their faces when he pulls away.

"It's good, isn't it?" Jaskier hums, running a hand over Geralt's arm. There's a bandage there where there wasn't before. "When you and your brothers were clearing the yards and she came to me, it felt like every ache I had ever felt in all the time I've followed you just  _ melted  _ away, and it was a beautiful, glorious feeling. A beating bad enough to get you looking like this, I knew you had to feel it too."

He raises himself up on his forearms but keeps his hips planted against the bed before rocking his weight back, forehead dropping to the furs. His back cracks nicely with the stretch, and he can breathe easily when he rights himself, hands loose atop his thighs. Then he takes notice of the white cat curled up on Jaskier's pillow, her eyes half-lidded. She purrs when he scratches under her chin, and both Witcher and bard smile at the sound.

"And Eskel didn't mind you stealing her away," he asks, withdrawing his hand. He huffs out a laugh when she glides like water over river rocks trying to chase the contact.

"Oh, no, he was quite happy to hand her off. He must feel a little guilty for teaming up against you."

"Eh, clearly I needed the practice."

"All the same, you deserved to know what it felt like. It made it a lot easier to patch you up." Jaskier pats his bandaged arm again. "You fell asleep hardly a breath after she settled down on your back."

He hums, looking down at the strange creature who's wormed its way into the lives of Witchers. She blinks those multicolored eyes at him, drawing out another smile, and he can't help but be thankful for her presence in their lives. He knows Eskel is a good Witcher. He's the best of all of them with Signs, he has the strongest connection to chaos, even if it pales in comparison to Yenn, but he's not invulnerable to mistakes. Geralt isn't either, nor is Lambert, but at least he has Jaskier, Lambert, Aiden when their paths cross.

"Thank you for watching over him," he says to the cat, blinking his eyes slowly in the same fashion. He's not prepared for her to stretch her body up, her forelimbs braced against his thighs, to press her forehead against his cheek. She pulls away once to blink again before bumping her head against his forehead then pulling away. She hops down from the bed and approaches the door, looking over her shoulder to Jaskier, then to Geralt.

"Suppose she wants to get back to her own Witcher now that you've recovered," Jaskier chuckles.

The cat spins and dips her head, like she's nodding.

"Do you think Vesemir will be mad at me if I don't accompany her back? She's been here long enough already, I highly doubt she's a demon cat out for her blood, or we would have noticed by now. I just, you know, would much rather stay here in bed for the rest of the afternoon."

"I'll take her back. Not that I think Vesemir would do anything at this point, but I'd rather not test him. I'll be back before you know it," Geralt promised, mimicking the cat with a press of his forehead to Jaskier's though he sealed it with a kiss, quick before they could get too involved, then pulled away.

Unlike Jaskier however, he didn't take a coat with him when he stepped into the hallway.

Cricket knows her way well enough, her white coat acting like a beacon even in the dim light provided by the torches in the walls. He wonders if she led the way back or if Jaskier carried her. More likely she rode on his shoulders. Most of the time when they see her it's when she's stretched over Eskel's shoulders, making him look like a strange sort of nobleman who had the misfortune of buying a coat with too small a fur lining around the neck. He stops and crouches low, holding an arm out to invite her up, but though she glances back at his pausing, she continues onwards.

She knows what she's about. When he finally rounds the last turn into the hallway where Eskel's taken up residence, he can see why she had declined the free ride.

The cat runs ahead of him, and with every stride, she seems to grow in size, until she's large enough that she can reach the doorknob with both paws when she stands on her hind legs. Effortlessly she gets the door open and quick as a flash, her tail disappears into the open room.

Geralt simply smiles and shuts the door without peeking inside. He can hear the laughter and the soft pitter patter of cat's feet, the jingle of a tiny bell being thrown across the room.

Whatever she is, he's grateful for her.

Now if only Lambert could get on board.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for your support, comments, and kudos!! We are so close to breaking 100 kudos!
> 
> I hope you all had a good thanksgiving and are staying safe and healthy. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which Lambert gets owned by a cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so CLEARLY I have abandoned all attempts to finish my other fic for NaNoWriMo and have instead jumped further into this one.....oops.

"Cat, don't do it."

"Her name is Cricket."

"I don't care what her name is. She gets any closer, she's dead."

"Do what you want, Cricket. He probably deserves it," Geralt grunts.

"Don't egg her on, asshole. Or you'll be the next one to meet the business end of my daggers."

The threat loses something of it's bite because the last person to meet the business end of his daggers is currently stitching up a large gash on Lambert's arm after turning the knife on its owner. It's not easy to disarm Lambert in a sparring match, but it can be done. A well-timed blast of Aard never hurts either, and Lambert, the poor pup, never stood a chance.

"That's quite enough. No daggers at the dinner table. You want to fight, you can take it to the yard," Vesemir sighs and runs a hand over his face. He's long since finished his meal, pushing aside his plate in favor of getting in a little light reading before moving off to the library. He tips his chin up, gesturing to the gash. "But perhaps wait a while for your arm to heal first."

It's not the first time cat and Witcher enter a staring contest, and it's certainly not going to be the last apparently. Half of Eskel wants to warn Cricket to think twice, the other half just wants to see it play out, the way Lambert's jaw clenches, the easy, relaxed twitch of the soft white tail. He knows who won the last contest and has no doubts she'll win again.

Surprisingly, though she doesn't blink, she does rise into a stand, taking the first tentative step towards the Witchers.

Lambert tenses under Eskel's hands. It's the only reason he looks up to see her moving.

"Don't," the wolf growls, and Vesemir shuts his book and promptly leaves the room, muttering something too low under his breath for even the Witchers to hear.

"Lambert, I'm almost done. Just stay still. And relax your arm for fuck's sake."

“How about controlling your own fucking cat for fuck’s sake?” Lambert bites back, and really, in the brief moment of time he looks away from Cricket to glower at Eskel, who’s really just trying his best to get Lambert’s arm stitched back together, Cricket covers the last few inches to the plate of food that Jaskier had so kindly set down in front of the injured Witcher, snatches up the leg of grouse between her jaws, and before Lambert can finish wrenching the dagger from his hip with the hand Eskel doesn't have a grip on, she's gone and pulling the meat from the bone from where she's settled by the fire.

"Fuck's sake, Lambert!"

"Oh, yes, lovely, lovely, just what I needed with my grouse, a fresh sprinkling of blood," Jaskier tries to say, but the effect of his sarcasm is ruined when he starts to gag at the blood still leaking from the jagged edges of the wound on Lambert's arm.

Because of course he's gone and torn out all of Eskel's neat stitches. Not that he's a master seamstress, but he's got a few more decades of patching himself up under his belt. They’re not  _ bad _ stitches.

"Cricket," he tries to say her name seriously, but he has to laugh when she burps, having finished off her stolen meal. A small burst of blue flame escapes from her mouth, delicate little tendrils of smoke curl around her whiskers. It's hard to sound properly serious around the laughter bubbling in his chest, and she levels him with such a nonchalant look he knows she has absolutely no regrets for kicking a man when he's down.

She just continues to stare at him, completely unaffected and unapologetic, before she starts to groom herself, licking a long stripe down her forelegs.

"I'll get more towels," Geralt huffs, but the bard isn't too far behind him.

With a gulp, Jaskier drops his silverware back onto his plate and declares his meal unfit for human consumption. Eskel can't even blame him, just mouths an apology, and gets back to stitching up his brother, who is still fuming and glaring daggers at the cat.

It's a near thing, keeping Lambert's hand off the dagger at his hip for the rest of the night, though it probably helps that he'd offered to take on Lambert's laundry duties for the coming week in addition to his own. It's not the easiest chore in the keep, given how much blood they typically encounter between sparring and hunting, but it's not the worst either. Plus, it's hard to dread the ache in his bones from taking on the extra work when he knows he has his own personal heater to melt his cares away.

Cricket seems satisfied with herself though, curling her tail around her paws. She waits for the rest of them to finish their meals and has the good sense not to try for a second helping of grouse when Jaskier brings a new plate for himself and the victim of the initial theft. She remains seated in front of the fire, eyes shut as though napping, until they begin to clear up the table. Following Eskel into the kitchen, she takes on the grueling task of pre-washing the dishes for them, tail swishing behind her as she laps up the grease and scraps left behind.

While the others leave for the library, Eskel stays with her. A soft smile dances across his face, growing brighter in the few moments she pauses in her work to look his way. It’s not long before she’s done, smacking her lips in the way cats do, pink tongue running over sharp teeth.

“You done now?” he asks. It’s not as though he’s expecting a response, but he gets one anyway in the form of her hopping down from the counter and into his lap, headbutting underneath his chin. He laughs but holds her away from him, hands under her arms. She looks more like an eel than a cat like this, but he endeavors to school himself into seriousness. “Cricket, you can’t keep bullying Lambert.”

She mewls and tries to wriggle out of his grasp, but he meets her wiggle for wiggle.

“I know he’s a bit of a nasty brute, but he’s my brother, understand?”

Her tail swishes and her head tips to one side, eyes falling half-shut. He would call it disdain in a human. She doesn’t seem amused.

“I know, I know, it’s a big ask, but try to be nicer to him. I’ll see if I can’t talk to him about being nicer to you too. You have to understand that he never chose this path, not that any of us did really, but his life was harsher than most before he came here. He has his reasons for being the way he is, but he’s a wolf at the end of the day.” Eskel brought Cricket back in against his chest, scratching her under the chin to maintain eye contact. “Wolves are loyal at their cores, cat. He’ll come around if you let him.”

She mewls again, but this time she reaches out with a paw to tap him on his scarred cheek. He hopes she means that she’s agreeing to behave around Lambert.

* * *

"How are you doing with your reading, Jaskier?" Vesemir asks politely before taking a sip from his mug, returning it to the table by his chair so gently the ceramic doesn't make a sound against the wood.

In contrast, Lambert is a factory of noise from the hearty swig to the heavy thud of his mug on the table to the satisfied noise he makes at the burn the alcohol leaves in his throat. Eskel shakes his head and glances down at the cat sprawled across his thighs. It's rare that she lies down on her side, resting her chin on the arm not currently used to pet her. It's the only reason he's still mostly sober; he hasn't been able to lift his own cup for quite some time. Not that he minds.

Cricket provides an easy warmth that envelops him entirely despite the fact that he's seated furthest from the fireplace. In his stead, Geralt and Jaskier are seated beside each other, not that it's any secret that they'll likely end up curled up together for another hour after everyone else has retired for the evening. Eskel supposes he should be thankful for their discretion. It's bad enough having to smell them all over each other. He doesn't know that he wants to see them do anything more than hand holding in front of him. The bard is a tactile creature. Eskel  _ knows _ how easy it is for Geralt to get the human's heart beating faster with just a look. A well placed touch, and no Witcher is safe from the spike of arousal that rolls off of the bard.

So, no, he's quite happy with the distance he has from the happy couple and quite happy that they've managed to become a couple after years of dancing around the other. Geralt deserves the kind smiles his bard sends his way, the easy affection.

Cricket stirs in his lap, twisting until she can reach up and scoots herself up his chest with her hind legs until her little paw taps the lower edge of his facial scars, nuzzling her nose against his face.

It's like she knows when he's about to think he doesn't deserve what Geralt has, for all the things he's done, mistakes he's made. Even on his good days when he can remind himself that those things happened in the past, it still hurts to be faced with fear and disgust because of his scars. Cricket always has a way of pulling him out of those thoughts. She's seen his scars and still she stays by his side.

He almost misses Jaskier's reply. "Oh, not well, I'm afraid. There's almost no mention of any cat demons, let alone one connected to fire. There's been one mention of a cat that never seems to stay the same size, but I'm pretty sure whoever wrote this was high on mushrooms at the time anyway so I can't say his word is trustworthy. He also described them as being shades of blue and purple and having six eyes."

Cricket certainly only has the two, and Eskel is quite thankful for it.

“...I mean, yes, I know several languages, but it’s another thing entirely to be able to translate this chicken scratch,” Jaskier huffs, and Eskel’s surprised he managed to drift off while the bard spoke. Cricket blinks up at him and drags his hand back to her head, protesting the pause in his petting. “But seriously, I’m beginning to doubt we’ll find anything useful regarding our little friend in any of these books. Whatever she is, it might be something rare enough to be encountered just once a century or something. I forget how old you are sometimes, Vesemir.”

“Where’d you even find her? We might have a better idea of where to look for answers if we knew where she came from,” Geralt suggests, and Jaskier flashes him such a soft look that Eskel has to dip his head to give them some privacy. Lambert mock gags, but Eskel can see how he hides a smile of his own behind the rim of his mug. They’re all glad that the pair are no longer pining over each other needlessly. The winters always seemed to drag on longer when Geralt moped over whether or not he would be fortunate enough to see his bard in the spring.

Eskel gives Cricket one more scratch under her chin before reaching over her to fetch his own mug, taking a long gulp to prepare himself for what really amounts to nothing useful for a song. He imagines Jaskier will find some way to prove him wrong anyway.

“Somewhere near Mount Gorgon, I think. I didn’t know for sure until Beauclair that she wasn’t leaving anytime soon. Been with me ever since, haven't you, Cricket?”

“The fuck were you doing that far south?” Lambert snorts.

“Getting paid in wine. Again,” he shoots back, raising up his cup as he dips his head slightly. “You’re welcome by the way.”

“A fair suggestion, but what if she’s an immortal creature? What if our dear Eskel is not the first Witcher to have caught her eye.”

And she does that thing that makes Eskel realize once again that whatever she is, she is first and foremost a creature of some intelligence. She shifts in his lap, sitting up with her ears pricked forwards, he knows her eyes are focused on Jaskier, and her body seems to vibrate with a tense sort of energy. She's never been close enough for him to feel it when she shifts, goes from small to large and vice versa, but he imagines it's something like this, chaos churning under her skin.

Vesemir hums, his hands come together in a steeple in front of his face, his elbows braced on the arms of his chair. "That's what I hoped to discover with the journals. She may be a rarer species than I gave her credit for."

"What does it matter what she is if she means us no harm?"

"It matters because she would not be the first creature to turn on its caregiver. The mages of old knew that well, kept their beasts chained, mentally and physically, wove all manners of spellwork to prevent their deaths at the hands of the creatures they kept, but that magic is beyond us now. To know your enemy is to be prepared for them. If there is some special circumstance, whether it be the moon aligning with the sun in some special way, on some special day, that might turn your pet into a bloodthirsty monster, we would all do well to know that  _ before _ it happens."

Eskel frowns. It's a fair point. It wouldn't be the first time strange things happened under an eclipse, lunar  _ or _ solar, though he has to admit he hates the thought of something changing her into something he has to kill.

Cricket's ears flick back and before he knows it, she's rubbing the side of her face against his scars. She meows softly and blinks those large eyes up at him.

It's like she's trying to say not to worry.

Which is exactly what something evil would say, but he tries not to dwell on that thought for long. He likes to think himself a good judge of character and he's never once felt threatened by Cricket's presence. It would be an awfully long game to play to have followed him this far, especially into a keep full of dangerous, highly trained Witchers, when she's had more than enough opportunities to kill him on the Path when he's been at his most vulnerable.

"What sorts of creatures are there that are immortal?" Jaskier asks.

"Us for starters," Lambert grunts and guzzles down the rest of whatever he's got in his cup.

“Not much. A lot of the things that are already dead might be considered immortal, things that kill by stealing the life from others, like a succubus.”

Geralt glances up at Eskel, a smirk pulling at his lips, and Eskel just chuckles under his breath. Yes, he was never going to live that one down apparently.

“She just eats meat though, doesn’t seem to steal anything of my life force anyway, and the medallions don’t react to her.”

And it’s a strange thought now that he thinks about it. She has enough chaos whirling around her that the wards picked up on it, kept her on the outskirts of the keep, but it’s settled now, hiding deep under her skin. She seems like a perfectly normal housecat, even if she continues to watch Jaskier bandy his ideas with the other Witchers. Her head hardly changes position. It’s like when he and Geralt messed with the chickens in their boyhood, catching them up with their wings pressed against their bodies then making all sorts of wild movements with them. Their heads always remained perfectly steady, fixed in position. Cricket’s just the same, no matter how he bounces his knee.

He scoops her up against his chest, but she quickly worms out of his grasp to resettle around his shoulders. Predictably, her eyes remain fixed on the Witchers.

They’re no closer to an answer by the time Vesemir shuts down the conversation in favor of bemoaning the fact that there’s yet another portion of the outer walls that’s in dire need of repair, and from there it’s little more than a shouting match over who should get that glorious task, though none of them are particularly annoyed by the idea of it. It’s all for show, just an excuse to make noise and rib each other. It’s a welcome change from the familiar silence on the Path.

It’s more than that though.

It’s family. It’s  _ home _ .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More of a filler chapter than anything here. Slice of life maybe?
> 
> One of two things might happen next.  
> One: another filler chapter next  
> Two: a filler-ish start and then hilarity after
> 
> The working title of the next next segment is "Jaskier's Ultimate Guide in How to Get a Cat to Like You" so that's a thing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which Eskel brings a cat to a fistfight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your kudos and comments, I hope you all are enjoying the ride. I did finally move it from completed to in progress status because clearly I cannot stop myself from writing about the boys and their pet cat.
> 
> Enjoy!

The cat's followed them into the training areas in the keep, and it's little more than another hall that's been cleared out of clutter. In place of long tables for Witchers-in-training there are smaller tables pushed back against the walls that are laden with an array of training weapons. Only a few of them are blunted now. Without the mages, the Trials can no longer be used to create more Witchers and the only ones who remain have no use for blunted knives, except for Jaskier on the very rare days he can be convinced to abandon his lute in favor of good old-fashioned manhandling in the name of toughening him up for the road ahead.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead with his long since discarded tunic, Eskel leans back against the wall and takes a long gulp from his waterskin. He's distracted scratching her under the chin when he hears the whoosh of air, the distinctive whistle of a dagger spinning end over end in the air.

Before he can get his legs underneath him to roll out of the way, his vision is blocked by a blur of white, then by a sudden flash of blue that leaves him temporarily blinded it's so close to his face.

The next time he looks up, Cricket is still in her larger form, crouched ahead of him, the smoking dagger beneath her large paw, and ahead of her, over her shoulder, three shocked faces, and one intrigued one.

"A cat defending a wolf," Vesemir hums. "Will she fight with you?"

"Fought a wyvern with me. I think she could handle a Witcher," Eskel replies, but even he has his doubts.

Lambert only looks angrier for having had his first dagger blocked so easily. He'll fight dirty given the chance. Eskel hopes he doesn't have to fight Lambert.

"Lambert, help Jaskier work through his defense stances. Geralt, go with Eskel. Let us see what other tricks our little friend is hiding up her sleeves."

Lambert growls but stalks off to where Jaskier was previously trying to land a hit against Geralt, and Geralt stops just a few feet shy of the large white cat that's still half-crouched in front of Eskel. Eskel tentatively runs a hand down her back, but she doesn't shift any more than a quick twitch of her tail, the blue flames dancing at the tip.

"Just fists?"

"Eskel, you have the advantage. Geralt,  _ you _ may use any weapon you like."

"This is going to be fun," the White Wolf chuckles, shifting his steel sword from hand to hand. Then he stretches out his free hand to help Eskel back onto his feet.

"Aye, it will," Eskel says and claps Geralt on the back before taking several steps back. He pats Cricket on the top of her head, scratches behind her ear. "Come now, let's show 'em what for, eh, Cricket?"

Geralt strikes first, a heavy swing from the right, and from there it's a blur just keeping up against him. He can't keep track of Cricket, not with how quickly Geralt can move.

At one point though Geralt manages to knock him back and he can see the sword swinging towards his face. Normally he would raise his arm to block but despite the advantage of fighting with a partner, he has to remember he is both without weapon and without armor. But the sword clatters to the floor when Cricket gets her jaws around Geralt's sword arm. He curses, trying to lever her jaws off as curses stream out of his mouth. Eskel can see the tendrils of smoke that slip past the cat's jaws. It must be another quirk of hers. Her forelimbs are anchored with thick claws that have embedded themselves into the leather armor of the Witcher, her hind limbs latch on the same way, braced against Geralt's side. 

Before Eskel can call her off the attack, and pray that she obeys (she is a  _ cat _ , not a dog, after all), Geralt gets his other hand against her chest and forces her off with Aard. While she picks herself up off the floor, trotting around both Witchers with her lips pulled back into a snarl, Geralt shakes out his still smoking sword arm. Had she not hidden herself for most of it, the fight with the wyvern would have been finished far more easily, he thinks. She is powerful, whatever she is, to hold her own like this. Point blank, Aard is not a sign to be trifled with.

"Going to call it?" Eskel shouts, readying himself for another rally. It's tough getting close enough to strike with bare fists when your opponent has a sword, but he only has to keep track of one opponent to Geralt's two. He moves in when Geralt has to turn away to knock Cricket out of the air mid-leap. It's only a momentary distraction, but it's enough to land three sharp jabs, one after the other, against Geralt's side. He puts all his weight into each strike, knowing it will take a lot to bring down a Witcher without being able to draw blood.

He has Geralt's attention again though and Cricket takes full advantage. Over Geralt's shoulder he can see it when the cat shifts her weight onto her hind legs, standing more like a bear than a cat. The hair on the back of her neck stands tall, and her lips are pulled back over four-inch long fangs. She roars, spittle flying from the points of those dangerous canines, and just as Geralt spins to defend against whatever she plans to do, she unleashes an ungodly stream of blue flame. It burns so hot the center of the stream is a bright, blinding white. It's so strong that even Eskel has to use Quen to shield himself from the blowback. It's so strong that when he can feel the shield trembling under the onslaught, he knows Geralt's can't be too far from breaking apart entirely.

"Call it now, Geralt,  _ yield _ !" He shouts over the roar of the flames.

There is a moment when he fears that Geralt's pride will leave him with a new set of scars.

Before Geralt can even finish getting the words out, the flames die down, and in their wake, Cricket has once more returned to her much smaller form. She blinks those beautiful eyes up at the Witchers before rubbing herself against Geralt's legs first then Eskel's.

"A giant fire-breathing cat demon, I have to say this one's a new one for me, and I must've read every song about monsters backwards and forwards when I studied in Oxenfurt," Jaskier snorts then wheezes when Lambert unhelpfully exploits his distraction.

“I hate to admit it, but one new to me as well,” Vesemir says. His arms fall away to his sides, and he heaves out a sigh. “I’ve never heard of such a thing. I’m loathe to think of how many of her kind might have been able to pass unnoticed as common house cats in the past.”

“Oooooooooooh,” Jaskier draws out the vowel for an exceedingly long time that has all the Witchers raising a brow in question. He looks about halfway to dancing in the spot. “Now  _ there’s _ an idea! You brilliant man, you! I could kiss you.”

“Please don’t,” Vesemir and Geralt grunt at the same time. They share a look, but Jaskier doesn't seem to catch it. He twirls on the spot, arms fluttering about as he continues to babble excitedly, he seems to struggle to put to words the thoughts forming in his mind.

“What are you going on about, bard?” Lambert grumbles across from him, snatching up the practice sword that Jaskier let drop in his excitement. He feints a thrust towards the bard, but clearly he’s picked up  _ some _ instinct since he’d first joined Geralt on the Path. He dodges out of the way, but doesn't stop to look back before scurrying across the hall to kneel beside Cricket. She rubs her cheek against his thigh, presses herself against him as she circles him, before she trots away to the fireplace.

"Just imagine for a moment, an immortal demon, only it's not a  _ bad _ demon, but a nice one. One that attaches itself to a family, protects them even. There's something quite poetic about the idea, and I swear I've heard something like it before, or, or, or read something about it. A queen's family with a rather famously long-lived household cat."

"Jaskier, what does this have to do with  _ our _ cat?" Lambert presses, urging the bard to come to his point much faster.

Cricket's multicolored eyes twitch between the bard and Eskel, her head is lowered just slightly. He can see the tightness in the muscles of her hind legs even through her beautifully plush coat. Her heart beats a rapid pace in the cage of her ribs, but her breathing remains steady.

"What I'm saying is we should look through family photos, portraits of notable families, see if we can't find a cat that looks like Cricket, or even just families with cats that look like they never change. We might be able to at least pinpoint whether or not they're immortal and if we're lucky we might even identify a family or two that's encountered something like her before."

It's actually a brilliant idea. Eskel can see it unfolding, the possible clues that might line up. There are records of most of the important families of the Northern Kingdoms in the library, though few of them are illustrated. Hopefully those records survived the Sacking. They had little reason before now to verify if they had.

He glances back towards the fireplace, seeking out the familiar shades of apple green and ocean blue, but all he sees is a small white blur. Cricket bolts from the training room. Little paws move across the stone with startling speed and little to no sound that can be heard over the beat of Jaskier's own heart.

"Where's she gone?" Jaskier asks, pausing in the middle of his grand ideas of how they might begin looking through history for family cats.

The room falls silent and Eskel tears his eyes away from the empty doorway. Vesemir catches his attention easily when he jerks his chin towards the hall.

"Find her. She's smarter than she lets on, but so, I hope, are we. Bard, you may be on the right track. The guilty tend to run when they are close to being found out."

Cricket is smart, there's no denying that, but she is, at the end of the day, predictable. Besides, with only four Witchers in the keep, it's not the most difficult task in the world to track her with his nose. But smart as she is, she probably already knew that. There's no hiding from a Witcher.

She still tries, poorly, but she tries. He expects her to be on his bed when he nudges open the door. She hadn't even shut it behind herself. It's no secret she can open and shut doors. It merely isn't talked about. Her little heart is still racing though from where she's tucked herself into the very bottom of the chest at the foot of his bed. She has to be buried beneath several layers of wool for the sound to be as muffled as it is.

Whatever's got her spooked, it's not worth it to make matters worse by hauling her out against her will. He's already seen firsthand today the level of destruction she's capable of unleashing on a whim. He does not need that firepower turned against him once more tonight. 

So instead he strips out of his clothes and wipes off what he can of the sweat and dirt that clings to his skin before he settles into bed. His ears stay trained on the soft heartbeat by his fit the rest of the night.

He sleeps in fits and starts, but at the first brush of silky hair against his torso, he can feel himself melting into the mattress. Cricket tucks herself into the curve of space above his shoulder by his neck, her cheek pressed against his. The rumble of her purring leads him into a peaceful, yet dreamless, sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your support! It means so much to me that you read this far. I hope that we are able to continue exploring this together!
> 
> Next update will be Jaskier's 10 Step Guide to Getting Cats to Like You ;)


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which Jaskier presents "Five Steps on How to Get a Cat to Like You."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My ads are now ALL cat-related thanks to this fic. I hope you're all happy. Enjoy!

It comes to a head eventually. It has to with the way Lambert, well, he doesn’t quite tiptoe around Cricket, but he rather audibly curses under his breath whenever he enters a room to find her already there. Vesemir, if anything, has asked Eskel to keep her on an even tighter leash than usual now that they have a plan of action to see if they can’t get a better idea of what she is. Eskel, dutiful son that he is, does his damnedest to keep track of her, but at the end of the day a demon cat is a cat is a cat is a cat and she’ll do what she pleases. The easy warmth of her presence at his side when he tucks in for the night makes it that much harder for him to wake when she leaves. He’s not fool enough to believe that she stays by his side religiously from dusk til dawn, even if he can’t find anything amiss when he wakes.

On more than one occasion, Lambert’s thrown something in Cricket’s general direction. He won’t say he’s startled, but he doesn’t have to. Not in a keep full of Witchers and an uncannily perceptive bard who has to read body language for a living. How else would he know how best to play a crowd to maximize profits? For all his bright colors and bawdy songs, Jaskier is anything but stupid.

Eskel can’t even blame Lambert, not really. He knows how unsettling it can be to have eyes on you when you don’t expect it, and when the cat settles her weight just so, she can make herself appear rather threatening in spite of her small stature.

Nevertheless, she avoids every projectile Lambert sends her way, and it only serves to piss him off even more.

Jaskier creeps into the front hall where Lambert has his kit spread out across the table. The room stinks of wet dirt and leather oil, the telltale stench of a much-needed deep clean. The Witcher has his bracers in his hands, working a waxy substance into the worn material, his brows furrowed in concentration. If he’d noticed the bard, he’s already brushed off his intrusion, he doesn’t look up when Jaskier approaches, his eyes fixed on his work.

“Promise you don’t have any knives on you.” Jaskier nearly surprises himself with the evenness of his tone.

Finally, Lamber glances up, golden eyes sharp and suspicious. He does his best not to wilt, has had years of practice with a much more frightening Witcher. “Would you believe me if I said I was unarmed?”

“Fair point, no,” but Jaskier still slides onto the bench opposite the youngest of the wolves, his hands clasped together on the tabletop, and he’s never felt more like a schoolmarm in his life. “Now, I don’t mean offense, but have you, perhaps ever, perhaps even a little bit, considered being, I don’t know, less of a dick?”

The growl that emerges from the Witcher should scare the bard. It’s frightened bigger men in the past, but Jaskier stays firmly seated, his trousers dry, and that’s an accomplishment in itself.

“Wolves don’t like cats,” Lambert grunts and dips his fingers back into the pot of wax by his thigh, applying it to the leather without another look Jaskier’s way. The bard doesn't move, doesn't even attempt to speak again, and Lambert can  _ feel _ him staring, but he refuses to break first. “If that’s all you had to say, get gone.”

“Now I hardly think that’s true,” Eskel laughs and drops onto the bench on Lambert’s left.

Jaskier grins across from him, taking in the look of shock on Lambert’s face. His hands go slack and it takes no effort at all for Geralt to pluck the bracers from his grasp and set them aside, Eskel doing the same with the wax. The poor bastard never saw, heard, or smelled them coming.

“Especially when we have evidence to the contrary,” Geralt chuckles on his other side. “We know about your Cat Witcher, pup.”

“Face it, you like cats.” Eskel jabs his brother in the side.

“I don’t like cats!”

“Oh, yeah, mhmm, absolutely believe that,” Jaskier snickers, but no one else makes another sound.

Four sets of eyes watch Cricket brush up against Jaskier's side. She weaves her lithe body through his arms and settles on top of the table, a cat loaf, Jaskier calls it, nested in the circle of his arms. Her chin rests comfortably on his right wrist, and he runs the back of his thumb under her jaw, smiling at the purr it summons.

“You’re staring.”

“Am not,” Lambert snaps. His hand twitches without the leather in his hands to keep him occupied, but between Eskel and Geralt, even he knows he can't move fast enough to knife the damn thing. The cat seems to know it too. The corners of her lips pull back into some strange feline approximation of a smirk, but then he blinks and the expression is gone. To all the world, she is little more than your average house cat, merely prettily marked.

“You are. Cats don’t like that.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t like cats so who gives a fuck?”

“We’ve been over this already, Lambert. You  _ do _ , in fact, like cats.”

“Do not.”

“I’m not arguing with you like a child. Come on, it’s time for Jaskier’s  _ Tried and True Five Steps to Get a Cat to Like You _ !”

“No.”

Despite the young wolf’s kicking and screaming, Eskel gets him up onto his feet, spins him around, and shoves him towards the bard, who is grinning far too broadly to be sane. It makes Lambert struggle even harder against Eskel’s grip. Geralt watches his brothers and his bard rather fondly, settling into the still warm seat that Lambert had occupied to continue the work he’d started. He’s still not quite smiling while Lambert hisses and rages that he hates cats, he hates Eskel, he hates Geralt, and he really, really hates bards.

Eskel just laughs. “You’re going to learn how to like each other, whether you like it or not. Geralt and I are doing the rest of your chores today so you are all freed up for Jaskier’s  _ exemplary  _ teachings.”

* * *

Lambert decidedly does not like this plan at all. Jaskier led the way to the library where Eskel deposited him just inside the doorway before rudely shoving him forward and off balance. For all his grumbling, he’s well aware that the bard is only human, fragile and tender-hearted as too few of their kind are, easy to overcome, but Geralt would have his head for that one, and he’s not really in the mood for that tonight. He goes to take his usual spot beside the long table that separates the ring of chairs by the fire from the rest of the library, where Jaskier usually “works” on his research projects while the others play Gwent and drink, but Cricket’s already too close. He hadn’t noticed her sneaking in past him at the door.

He halts, can already feel the growl rising in his throat as she matches his stare.

The touch of a hand at his shoulder shocks him out of the slow simmer of distaste. He forgets how tall Jaskier is for a human, how  _ tactile _ he likes to be. 

“Okay, so step one, cats can smell fear. They’re generally prey animals given their small size so they like to feel secure, and it’s hard for them to feel secure around people who are nervous.”

“Yeah, and who says I’m nervous?” Lambert snorts and crosses his arms over his chest.

Jaskier levels him with a look and has to shake his head. He kneels down in front of Vesemir’s previously empty armchair in the library and extends his hand out towards Cricket while keeping his body angled away from her. “You are, and I guess I can’t really blame you for being a little nervous now that we’ve seen what she can do, but you were nervous even before she started breathing fire.”

“Was not.”

Jaskier inhales sharply but wisely doesn’t fire back. He meets Cricket’s gaze with a soft look instead before beckoning the Witcher over with his free hand. “ _ Anyway _ , what you need to do to make her feel safer around you is make yourself smaller. At least as a first step, think of it as a Step 1a.”

“I’m a  _ Witcher _ , bard. The whole point was to make us big and scary, to make us into monsters.”

“Yes, but you’re shorter than Eskel and not nearly as broad, and she likes him just fine.”

“Everyone loves Eskel,” Lambert snorts, and he’s not expecting the soft look that Jaskier sends his way. He glares until the bard looks back at the cat, breaking the tension.

“Shush, just listen to me for a minute, will you? The problem is not that you’re a Witcher, the problem is your attitude. You go up to a cat prepared for it to fight you, it’s going to expect a fight.”

“Sounds like Aiden.” A soft smile lights up Lambert’s face for a moment before he squashes the sentiment back down, but Jaskier’s already seen it.

“Yes, good, because you like Aiden. Now, just come over here.” When the Witcher doesn’t move, Jaskier lays a hand over his heart, his jaw dropped in mock outrage. “What, I’m not going to bite.”

Lambert scoffs but does as he’s bid, kneeling across from Jaskier. He doesn’t break eye contact with the cat.

“Good, good, now stick out your arm.”

He does, but he gets a hiss in return for his efforts.

“Melitele’s tits,  _ Lambert! _ How about extending your arm like you  _ aren’t  _ about to throw a dagger? Cats don’t like sudden movements. Try again, but slowly this time. Let her come to you.”

The first touch of a whisker against his knuckles almost has him recoiling, but then he feels the soft huff of air from her nose. It would be easy to sink into a meditative state, even though it was his least favorite skill to practice during training, but he hates the quiet, hates the tension, hates that his brothers put him up to this.

And then she presses her head against his palm. Every muscle lights up with warmth, the sensation courses through his veins, and he feels  _ light _ in a way he’s never felt before except for the one time he almost didn’t come back from a hunt. Bleeding out into the mud, beneath an onslaught of rain, the sensation of drifting is entirely different now.

When he reopens his eyes, the cat is gone and Jaskier is curled up in his usual seat behind the table, knees drawn against his chest. He barely even looks up from his books, but as soon as Lambert shoves himself back onto his feet again, the bard smirks.

He’s about to ask why when he looks outside.

It’s well into the evening.

_ Fuck _ .

* * *

They’re all seated together for dinner, bent over bowls of venison stew thanks to Eskel’s little friend. When asked, he can’t even explain how it happened. Only that one moment she was there by his side, and by the next, he’d had to raise his sword against something large and running straight towards him. Only after the creature had collapsed into the snow, the Witcher drenched in its blood from having cut clean down its belly in its flight, had he realized it was a large doe. Cricket only reappeared after he’d finished gutting the poor thing and led the way back to the keep in silence, melting a path for them both.

Jaskier is the first to finish his first helping, eagerly ladling a second into his bowl, and before he even returns to his seat, he’s speaking, “Step two, and honestly, this might be more for me than for our dear little feline friend, but it may come as a surprise to you, but cats have a very keen sense of smell.”

“What’s your point?”

“You should bathe. Somewhat regularly. More regularly than you do, at any rate. It’s off putting. And I’m not even a cat.”

Lambert just about hurls his nearly empty bowl at the bard. It’s only his reluctance to upset Vesemir  _ and _ Geralt at the same time that saves Jaskier’s hide. When he turns in for the night, he gives himself such a thorough scrubbing his skin feels raw and he could give a cooked lobster a run for its money, he’s so red.

And in the morning, when he sits down for a light breakfast, Eskel is already there, pointedly sniffing the air with a grin. From the fireplace, Cricket blinks at him very slowly before curling into a ball, her back to the fire. She does not wrinkle her nose at him for the rest of the day, and if he begins to bathe more thoroughly and more frequently, it’s only because he knows he will miss the luxury when he returns to the Path in spring.

* * *

It’s early. It is far too early for Jaskier to be pestering him like this, and not for the first time Lambert curses Geralt for bringing the bard into their home. It’s all well and good that they don’t have to deal with his moping around the keep anymore, but if Jaskier keeps on like this, Lambert almost misses the heavy silences.

Like ripping off a bandage, Lambert forces himself to prepare for the day. For whatever reason, since they’ve started making progress regarding her nature, Cricket’s exceedingly helpful around the keep as much as a demon cat can be. Eskel makes it a habit of going for long walks outside to keep the cat company while he defrosts their most frequented paths and clears out the courtyards. As long as it’s not active blizzard conditions, even just their morning walks together keep most areas accessible without the risk of breaking a neck from slipping on ice. It’s nice not having to shovel everything by hand or wear themselves out casting Igni for hours on end, they’re not all endless fountains of endurance like Eskel or blessed with fire-aligned demon cats.

Nevertheless, he would much rather acknowledge that she’s useful and leave it at that, rather than keep playing at this game of winning her favor. He’s fairly certain she only avoids him now due to spite more than any actual active dislike for him.

Eskel must have just finished his rounds and left her under Jaskier’s supervision because there she is, seated by the fireplace, her personal Witcher suspiciously absent. Lambert’s eyes track the steady movements of the knife as it glides through the meat that Jaskier expertly cuts away from the bone and trims down to long strips.

“Step three, make good things happen around you. You want her to start associating you with positive things. Eskel hasn’t fed her yet today, which could be good and bad for us, I’ve never really tried this with a demon cat, but suppose there’s a first time for everything and at any rate, I’ve seen Eskel giving her pep talks too so I really don’t expect anything too bad from her. She likes him, your brother, and I can’t see her doing anything to hurt you, no matter how she feels about you. Cats are smart creatures, you see, they can recognize family.”

“Do you ever shut up, bard?”

“Only when I’m sleeping, I’m afraid, although I have been told I sometimes sing lyrics in my sleep so I suppose it’s safe to say, no, no I don’t really ever shut up,” Jaskier teases and sets down a large bowl of chopped meat, still raw with a shallow layer of blood pooled at the bottom. “Can’t say I really expected her to eat anything different, but still, kind of gross.”

“Get on with it, bard. I have better things to be doing.”

“No, you don’t. Geralt and Eskel are taking care of things for you,” Jaskier retorts easily then drops a chunk of meat into Lambert’s palm. “So, what you’re going to want to do is cut it into smaller pieces and leave a sort of trail, like you’re rewarding her for coming closer to you. If she stops at a certain distance, say two feet away from you and refuses the food, that’s okay. You can just work at that distance for today. It’s important to go at her pace, whatever makes her comfortable. You can’t push cats; they’ll just push back twice as hard and you’ll undo all your progress.”

Lambert flicks out a knife from Jaskier doesn’t want to know where and swiftly shaves off several pieces of meat. Across from them, at the other end of the kitchen, Cricket’s been watching them with half-lidded eyes, tail curled around her paws. She licks her lips when Lambert finishes cutting up the last cube of meat, and he definitely doesn't flinch at the flash of sharp, white teeth. It smells like venison. He should be mad that she’s being fed something that could be dried out and made into jerky for the Path, but he supposes he has no right. She  _ was _ the one who hunted it down after all. Jaskier picks up a piece, turns it over between his fingers, and hums his approval.

“These are perfect. So, just like before, you want to angle yourself away and get low, then just toss it out.  _ Gently _ . And I really feel like I shouldn’t have to say that every time, but clearly the message has yet to stick. Slow movements with cats. Don’t just pelt her with meat. No one likes that.”

It takes a concentrated effort to keep his movements slow, but he sets down the first piece of meat and takes several steps back. Cricket creeps forward and quick as a flash of lightning, steals the meat and chews it from the relative safety of the fireplace. Most of the morning passes by, but Jaskier stays with him, surprisingly quiet, while he tries not to let his irritation bleed through into his actions.

Just before the sun reaches its peak in the sky, Cricket surpasses Jaskier's guess that she would stop at two feet. She stands, albeit cautiously, only inches from Lambert's knees, her mismatched eyes flicking between him and the last piece of meat in his fingertips.

When he places it on the floor and shifts his weight back to give her space without body pressure, Cricket surprises them both by taking the meat between her jaws, swallowing it down, impressive even if it was cut much smaller than the others, and closing the distance between them. Lambert flinches at the press of her paws against his thighs but forces himself to look down at her.

"Told you, my foolproof plan," Jaskier snickers and gets up with a groan. He stretches his arms up high, twists at the hips to make his back crack, and wanders over to a jar of fruit on the counter, sneaking a couple of pieces into his mouth. "You could probably pet her now. She doesn't look like she's about to kill you."

He locks eyes with the cat and points a finger in her face threateningly. "None of that daze-y business, alright?"

Really, in hindsight. it would have been better if he hadn't said anything at all. They know the cat's smart, has an understanding of language.

She does it to spite him. Honestly.

The second his hand makes contact with the space between her ears, she floods his senses with warmth and contentment. Predictably he goes limp where he kneels, falling backwards against the stones, his head luckily pillowed by his outstretched arm. Jaskier chokes on his laughter, but when Cricket saunters over to the doorway, her intent to find Eskel clear, who is he to leave a lady to walk the halls of the keep alone?

Besides, Lambert's a big boy. He can handle himself.

* * *

More and more often now Cricket trots at Jaskier's heels rather than Eskel's during the day, but without fail, when they retire to the library in the evenings, there's only one Witcher who is blessed with her company on their lap. Only this time, after Lambert's finished cleaning off their dishes from dinner, he hears the rapid beating of the bard's heart first, smells the joyfulness in the air, and is nearly deafened by the raucous cheers of his brothers, the hooting and hollering that eggs the bard on in whatever he's doing almost covers up the delighted huff from Vesemir.

He doesn't expect to find the bard running like a headless chicken, leaping over low stools, Eskel's outstretched legs and the like, the cat racing after him. Three more passes around the front of the room and Lambert finally picks up on the wand in the bard's hand. A long cord attached to the end is tipped with a collection of brightly colored chicken tail feathers, and it's that prize that has Cricket jumping and leaping and twisting in midair.

Only once she finally succeeds in grabbing the wad of feathers between her paws does someone notice he's stood there dumbfounded for so long.

Jaskier waves him in while brushing his hair out of his face with his opposite hand. Despite the sweat on his forehead, his hair defies all attempts to be tamed and simply flips back over his eyes.

“Alright, now we’re on to step four," Jaskier pants, hands on his hips, "play. Cats are made to hunt, they enjoy using those skills during play. This is the time when you can use sudden movements in the toy to activate that hunting instinct. And as you've just seen, they're typically more active at night so this is the best time to engage in their natural instincts.”

Jaskier passes him the wand and for a minute he just scowls at it, scowls at the bard, scowls at the cat, scowls at his brothers, and scowls at the man who'd practically raised them all before settling back on the bard. "The fuck am I supposed to do with this?"

Jaskier's laughter is bright and airy and he bends over backwards clutching his stomach. Definitely too much wine already. Geralt will have to monitor his pet better in the future.

"Oh, my dear Witcher, you  _ play _ with her, you know," he drawls even though the Witcher  _ clearly _ does not know and twists his wrist just so, "you just sort of twitch it. Like quick, sudden movements, change the direction and stuff. Give her the illusion of being able to catch it and just  _ snatch it away _ . Though you should be nice and let her win a couple of times, or they tend to get bored."

He does what Jaskier did with his wrist. The feathers dance at the end of the cord, but the cat remains unmoved.

"Hush. You're doing fine. Again," Jaskier instructs quietly.

Before long, the library is full of shouts again, goading chants, and stomping feet as Jaskier plays his lute and his favorite call-and-response songs that he doesn’t get to play nearly as often as he would like. He leads a charming parade, spinning as he walks. Lambert follows him, a smile across his face while he waves the wand of feathers around his head, and Cricket brings up the rear, eyes flashing with an unearthly blue hue, leaping in the air with a haunting grace.

Everyone is so caught up in the festive air that Jaskier’s cultivated, singing along or otherwise keeping the beat going that no one notices the shadows that stretch up the walls behind them.

No one notices the long shadow of the cat that dances entirely to its own rhythm, untethered to a physical form. It bobs and it weaves, spins and twirls, and twists round and round with its tail tipped in fire.

No one notices, and the storm rages on beyond the walls of the ruined keep.

Still, no one notices when the shadow loses its ears, paws morphing into hands, and a long fan of hair spins out behind the dark figure’s head as it dances against the stone walls. Not even when the fire in the hearth dies down into glowing ashes and the laughter settles into quiet chatter do they notice the shadow that lingers in their peripheral vision.

* * *

The Witcher should be covered in snow, but only a slight dampness to the dark hair that falls around his scarred face is the only sign that he’d been out at all despite the fact that the snowstorm outside has yet to break even after five days of unrelenting snow and bone chilling cold. It’s purposeless, he knows it, to walk the perimeter of the keep in such poor conditions. The wind whips around him too harshly for any scent it carries to be useful and visibility is so poor he can barely see beyond the tips of his boots. He does it more out of habit and the feeling of calm that settles on his shoulders. Not even the ceaseless buffeting of the wind can lift the peaceful veil around him when he is in Cricket’s company, for he’s certain he has her to thank for it.

He smiles down at the cat leaning against his leg, and she blinks up at him, calm and slow, then leads the way into the kitchens where Lambert and Jaskier are already seated, each one eating a steaming bowl of oatmeal, though based on the smell that permeates the air, Jaskier’s bowl contains more honey than oats.

“What’s on the docket today then,” Lambert asks without lifting his head from his breakfast. “Come to drop off your cat, didn’t you?”

“You can send her back to me whenever you’re done with her for the day. She knows how to find me,” Eskel says to Jaskier first, then glances down at Lambert. “You’re doing well with her, Lambert, I think you’ll be friends before the storm’s blown over.”

“Don’t count on it,” the younger wolf snarls, but he still refuses to lift his eyes.

Eskel’s gaze flicks down to the cat, and almost as though she can read his mind, she hops up onto the bench beside Lambert, putting herself into his field of vision. Just as he suspected, the Witcher bristles, and Eskel chuckles.

“I’ll see you three later. Be good, Cricket. He’s an ass, but he’s still my brother.”

She meows but doesn’t go to follow him when he leaves the room, melts against the hand Jaskier stretches out across the tabletop to scratch under her chin.

When the bowls are emptied and washed and set aside to dry, Jaskier and Cricket lead the way side by side up to Geralt’s room, and Lambert can’t help the grimace when the bard opens the door with a lecherous grin. Jaskier’s not even sorry for it. He simply saunters in with a confident sway to his hips, rifles through the assortment of items spread out over a desk that’s never seen so many personal items before, grabs a few things, and then returns to Lambert’s side still grinning. He shuts the door behind him, patting the Witcher on the cheek, and heads back down the way they came.

“What’s wrong, Lambert? Cat got your tongue?” he snickers.

Once they’ve reached the library, Jaskier dumps everything he’d taken from his shared room with Geralt onto the table where his research sits in disorganized piles and meets Lambert’s sour expression with yet another smile. He stands in front of his little pile of things just right so that Lambert can’t see past him.

“Time for step five, and this one is my favorite,” he explains. 

“Why’s that?” The wolf knows it’s a dangerous question, questions always are when faced with someone that lives to speak for the simple joy of hearing his own voice.

“Grooming! What’s not to love about pampering someone else?”

“I can think of several reasons,” Lambert grumbles to himself, but the bard is already a flurry of motion.

He snatches up a woolen blanket from the back of one of the chairs and spreads it out on the floor before the hearth. With a pointed look, Jaskier convinces the Witcher to cast Igni at the logs he’s already stacked there, and soon the immediate area of the fireplace warms. The storm outside makes all the rooms feel colder even with fires going, but having the cat around helps somewhat walking through the chilly halls. The bard breathes hot air into his cupped palms, rubbing them together, and organizes a startling array of brushes and combes in front of him, along with a tiny spray bottle of what Lambert assumes contains some sort of perfume. It smells flowery but strangely not unlike a pine forest at the same time. It’s not wholly unpleasant.

When everything is sorted to whatever Jaskier’s standards are, the bard pats a spot on the blanket to his left, and Cricket eagerly trots forward to sit where she’s bid. Then Jaskier points to a spot directly ahead of him.

Lambert huffs, but he follows suit, kneeling in front of them both.

Jaskier picks up a simple wooden comb, carved from a light colored wood and decorated with little hand painted buttercups on the handle. “So we’ll start with this comb. You want to start with a wide-toothed comb to work through the major tangles first, and then we’ll work our way back down to something a little finer to work out the smaller knots. Normally, you wouldn’t be able to get all of her groomed at once, but I don’t think we’ll have that problem today.”

“Why not?”

“She lets you pet her and feed her. Grooming is just an extension of that trust, that’s why it’s the last step in my program.”

The Witcher still looks skeptical, but Jaskier presses on. He calls upon all his skills learned in the courts of kings and queens from past winters spent playing for nobility as often as he played for children, told to keep them quiet while the adults talked. It takes a patient voice and a gentle hand to keep both cat and Witcher from bolting, but pretty soon he has them both well in hand. He explains how to line brush an animal, moving from the head down to the tail, parting the hair to the skin and combing out all the little knots and tangles she’d acquired in her adventures around Kaer Morhen though really, there aren’t many mats that have him worried.

“She’s actually a pretty good cat. A lot of time, the long haired ones will get mats that need to be cut out from between their legs, but she’s taken really good care of herself.” He scratches under her chin and she purrs against his hand. She doesn’t even flinch when Lambert has to lift up her front end where she’s nearly melting in Jaskier’s hands.

Cricket preens, sticking out her little chest with pride.

After all the work he’d put into convincing Lambert to move slowly around the cat, to move with his intentions clear, is coming together beautifully. They’ve moved onto a smaller, finer toothed comb with few issues now and even on the third, more thorough brushout, Cricket hardly seems ready to leave. Indeed, she’s moved closer to Lambert since they started, and she leans into him with every pass of the comb. There is no mistaking the purr that rumbles in her little chest.

“How’d you know so much about cat grooming?”

“Just something you pick up in court, I suppose, during the winters I spent at various courts, when I didn’t feel up to teaching at Oxenfurt. Cats as housepets is fairly common further to the south rather than mere coexistence. I’m not surprised that’s where Eskel found her. The cats are all treated rather well there compared to here.”

Lambert grunts an acknowledgment, but Jaskier only huffs out a soft laugh in response. He wishes he’d brought his lute down with him. His hands itch to be occupied, so he stands, steps around to the far side of the long table buried beneath his books. It would be faster to flip through the pages looking for illustrations, but he’s well aware how infrequently writers illustrated their own works so he resigns himself to a long night of reading miscellaneous family histories.

He’d meant to read books meant for Witchers’ eyes only, to learn more of the monsters that plagued the Continent so that he might be of  _ some _ use to Geralt on the Path, but he can’t find it in himself to be displeased by this turn of events. As it turns out, there’s a fair amount of gossip and sordid tales that have been written down that he could probably weave into at least two or three new tavern songs. Not his style now as much since he’s started following Geralt, but it’s good for convincing drunks to part with their coin, better than songs about selkiemore guts. No matter how he feels about the source material or how well it should be received. There’s nothing wrong with a bawdy tavern song, but honestly, he can’t fathom how people could be so complacent with the tantalizing taste of adventure so close. Then again, not everyone is so lucky, or persistent in their determination, to follow a Witcher.

He has that in common with Cricket at least. He can’t begrudge her for whatever choices she’d made that led her this far, brought her to Eskel, not when it’s clear how good she’s been for him, or for all of them.

“Done brushing,” Lambert grunts, setting aside the small comb with more care than Jaskier would have initially guessed was possible for the large man. Jaskier leaves behind his books and kneels down, lifting the small perfume bottle and tilting it to see the petals swirl inside the glass.

“Honestly, we probably should have bathed her first. It’s a good way to degrease the coat as an additional step to prevent matting, but I didn’t want to risk losing whatever trust she has with you, not on her first thorough grooming, which is why I brought this. It’s a special blend, just to keep me smelling fresh on the road. You don’t need much, you see, just a light spritz over her back and it should hold for several hours at least.”

He presses down once and a fine cloud of mist floats down over Cricket’s back.

“And what now?”

Jaskier shakes his head with a small laugh and holds out the wide toothed comb again, the one decorated with buttercups. “For best results, you should use this comb again to work it down through her coat.”

Lambert doesn’t even need additional prompting before he gets started again, and it's unmistakable, the sound of Cricket’s purring when it fills the room. When Jaskier returns to his seat behind the desk, he’s distinctly aware of the bubble of warmth that’s been extended now to include his little setup.

It’s as much of a ‘thank you’ as he can expect to get from something that can’t speak.

He’s nearly falling asleep himself when he next looks away from a riveting story of a love affair between two warring houses when he sees it. Lambert has slumped over onto his side. One arm pillows his head, the other serves to keep the cat cradled against his chest. The easy warmth she provides has not faded in the least for all that it looks she’s asleep. Similarly, nor has the purring stopped. Unlike before in the kitchen when she’d pushed the warmth into the Witcher, knocking him out into a pleasant, but unasked for sleep, and fled from the room, she stays curled up with the young wolf. Somehow Jaskier knows she will stay with him until all his aches and pains are gone to gently bring him back to wakefulness. He knows that she will now extend her aid when he spars, when he takes a few too many hits, as much as she offers her help to Geralt or Eskel.

The smile that slips onto his face is genuine and he sighs happily. “And with that, I think my work here is done.”

“Never thought I’d see the day,” Eskel comments, and Jaskier most definitely does not startle.

The Witcher stands silently in the doorway. The scar on his face is cast into ugly relief thanks to the light of the fire, but somehow he still manages to look soft. Probably the smile, the way he looks at his brother and what has certainly become his best friend.

Cricket opens one eye, her green one, but instead of pulling away from Lambert, she snuggles in closer, tucks her nose under his jaw, and goes back to sleep.

Jaskier and Eskel share a soft laugh and a promise to see the cat returned in due time.

Lambert sleeps well into the evening, and not even the smell of a fresh roast is enough to draw him back to life any sooner than Cricket desires to release him. And when that time finally comes, without needing to be asked, without waiting for the Witcher to grumble about his food having gone cold, she heats up his plate and nudges it towards him. Only once he finally stands does she step away from where she’d pressed herself against his side, realizing for the first time that they’re alone.

“Come on, let’s get you to bed,” he says it gruffly, but thankfully no one is around to call him out for the smile on his face when Cricket leaps onto his shoulders and curls around his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Or alternatively the one in which I write 6k words on how to get a cat to like you 
> 
> Holy shit, guys. I feel like I'm beyond late to the game, but I just listened to the amazing devil and FUUUUUUCK
> 
> That's all I have to say about that. Anyway, I feel like we might be approaching the end here, but I hope to add in some ridiculous cat shenanigans before we get to the big Capital-T Truth of our little friend.
> 
> Thanks all of you for reading, subscribing, and leaving a kudos. You're the reason I'm still here writing about cats.


	7. CH7a

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one where they have fun
> 
> and then the angst hits

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for still being here, sorry for the late update.

The storm that’s plagued them for what feels like forever and kept them indoors has finally abated, and Cricket and Jaskier are both treated to the strangeness of Witchers. The brothers lead the way up to a walkway looking over the main courtyard which is filled with snow and peer over the edge. Without Witcher hearing, Jaskier simply watches on, curious but content to remain bundled up in scavenged furs from the keep. Beside him, her long bushy tail wrapped around his ankles, Cricket keeps him pleasantly warm simply by her proximity, but she too cocks her head observing their Witcher friends.

Then, without warning, one after the other, they leap, dropping into the mounds of white below. Jaskier most certainly does not screech in horror, rushing to the low walls of the walkway. Only the shadow of the edges of the holes they leave behind give him any clue of their new whereabouts, and it’s surprising just how thick the snow is.

“Do you think that’s too much snow for you to clear out with your, well, your fire...thing you have going on?” Jaskier asks, leaning back from the edge once the Witchers drag themselves back out, laughing and clapping each other on the back. They’re too far away to hear their exact words, but Geralt waves at him before following his brothers back inside. “I mean, I just don’t want them to try this again.”

Cricket hops up onto the wall beside him, brushes her head against his shoulder, and blinks up at him so sweetly, he can feel himself melting under her gaze. She really is just a sweet thing.

His hand is halfway lifted to scratch her under the chin when gone is the little cat that he’d considered petting, and in its place is a massive white lioness of sorts, tail tip wreathed in blue flames. She doesn’t even give him a chance to refuse before she has the back of his sweater between her teeth and she tips herself over the side, dragging him along.

Every Witcher in the keep turns back to watch in horrified silence as cat and bard begin their descent. But despite the height of the walkway, it’s a rather short fall given the depth of the snow. Though cats always land on their feet, Cricket maneuvers herself as they fall to cradle the bard against her chest, tucked safely away behind her paws.

Jaskier expects the fall to hurt. The white rushes up far too quickly for him to feel at all safe, even with a large predator wrapped around him. Even the warmth he’d grown accustomed to is strangely absent and he's frightened for what that means for her.

It’s not until he can feel the snow seeping into his clothes that he realizes why the warmth is gone.

She'd done it on purpose. To cushion their fall. Which is yet another thing to file onto her list of quirks.

Her mismatched eyes blink down at him and she bats him lightly atop his head with one of her massive paws, nudging him to scoot off of her. They're still surrounded by snow, both above and below, and it just goes to show just how much snow had amassed over the last week. As soon as he slides off Cricket's stomach, she rolls over onto her paws and bulldozes her way through the snow until they can feel the sunlight again in full.

His heart still races like a rabbit's in a snare, but now that he's done it and survived, the adrenaline burns it's way through his veins.

Even before Geralt can reach him to check him over for injury, Jaskier turns to Cricket and asks, "Want to go again?"

Her ears twitch upwards and she does a strange sort of noise, caught between a chirp and a growl, before she drops her front half into a bow not unlike the fancy horses he'd seen once upon a time at a fantastically rich Duke's court in the south. He climbs on before the rational part of his brain kicks in, and, Melitele preserve him, quick as a flash, they're running headlong into the wall. It's a near thing, but he locks his grip around his wrists, looped around her neck, just in time to dangle along the line of her back as she scrambles up the crumbling wall. Suddenly he is very aware of just how  _ strong _ she is and just how incredibly lucky they are that she's on their side. He can feel the thick muscle bunching under her shoulders as she surges upwards, he can see the heavy claws that sink into the stone as easily as they might sink into flesh, he can feel the warmth that once more radiates from the cat.

Almost too soon she crests the top of the wall, and he stands to peer back over the edge at the confounded Witchers gathered below.

"Oh, I like this," Lambert chuckles at Geralt. "Looks like your bard has more spine than I thought."

"Come on, Geralt, live a little!" Jaskier crows and then hops up onto the wall overlooking an untouched pile of snow. His courage fails him for just a moment. It's just so much higher up when standing on the edge, but Cricket seems to notice his heart jumping into his throat. She nudges her great blocky head under his hand and pushes a bubble of warmth into his chest, just a little surge of courage. 

She blinks up at him, a purr rumbling in her throat that would sound a lot like  _ You can do this _ if she could speak.

"You're absolutely right," he says under his breath then shakes out his hands, bends his knees, and  _ jumps.  _

When he emerges from the snowbank, shaking snow from his floppy brown locks, his cheeks are flushed red from the combination of the thrill and the cold, and Jaskier has never felt more alive. He turns to look upwards, but Geralt yanks him back by his collar before he can so much as squawk.

"No more," he grunts. 

"Oh, you  _ are _ scared," Jaskier chuckles but allows himself to be dragged away. "Will you, my dear Witchers, meekly allow me, a humble bard-" Lambert grumbles something about "humble isn't what I'd call it" in the background but Jaskier plows on, "-to outdo you? Really? Two jumps off the wall to your one?"

"Don't know that I'd call that first one a jump, bard," Eskel laughs and pats him on the shoulder when Geralt drags him past.

"All the same, I don't see anyone else volunteering a second time. Except for Cricket. And honestly, a cat and a bard outperforming no less than three Witchers? I shudder to think the safety of mankind is left in the hands of such, well,  _ cowards _ is the only word for it, is it not?"

He smirks and he knows he has them caught. Already Lambert is stalking back towards the keep, his intent to climb back up the stairs clear with every heavy footfall. He's come this far, too far to be outdone by a cat.

Somehow, in the seconds that Jaskier watched Lambert disappear into the keep, Cricket reappears in the courtyard, still larger than any house cat ought to be, nudging Eskel's hip with her nose, pushing him backwards.

"I'm not doing it. Cricket, no," he says, but he can't seem to keep a straight face. "No, no, once was enough."

For all the strength granted to them by potion or by trial, not even a Witcher is built to withstand the sheer bulk of a cat easily three times their size by weight.

Which is, incidentally, how the last two Witchers end up on the top of the wall in time for Lambert to join them with a surprised expression. At the same time Vesemir appears in the doorway. Jaskier waves, but as soon as the older Witcher spots his three charges on the wall, he merely shakes his head and continues on without another word, though Jaskier suspects he's thinking something along the lines of "boys will be boys."

And before they head back inside to actually do their chores for the day before Vesemir returns to yell at them, the answer to Jaskier's earlier question is no, no the massive amount of snow that's accumulated in the courtyard is, in fact, not too much for Cricket to take care of for them.

He's only a little scared for his life by how easily she reduces the mountains of white to puddles of mud that squelch around his boots.

* * *

It becomes apparent rather quickly now that Lambert’s finally been accepted into Cricket’s circle of trust that she has them all wrapped around her paws. As much as Vesemir cautions them against trusting her too much while they still know so little about her capabilities, only what she’s deigned to show them, no one fights when she comes in close for a cuddle. The rest they get is the best they’ve ever had. It’s hard not to hunger for the peace that washes over them when she’s so close. Eskel certainly doesn’t fight it, has known her the longest, and trusted her the most.

But there are the nights when he can feel the chaos shifting under his skin.

He should fear her. He should fear the vibration of the medallion at his neck as it pulls him from sleep. He should fear the shadow that stretches from the base of the walls, stretches up onto the ceiling. He should fear the way the cat turns to face him, pupils large with the darkness of the night, even with the dim glow of the coals in the fireplace and the pale light of the crescent moon outside. He should fear the way that she creeps, the way that she stalks toward him, the way her form seems to shift and transform before his very eyes. He should fear the way she hovers at his bedside, her mouth is opened just slightly, just enough to show the flash of white teeth, teeth and jaws large enough to crush his skull.

He should be afraid when she leans up and back to stand on her hind legs, still watching him with those oddly mismatched eyes.

He wants to believe the voice he hears is in his head, but it’s not a voice he’s heard before that whispers, “Go back to sleep.”

Yet his eyelids feel heavy and he doesn’t have it in him to fight it, not when he feels this warm.

He should be afraid of the way she so easily uses the flood of warmth against them. He hadn’t been there to witness it himself, but Jaskier told him how she sent Lambert to sleep when he simply set his hand atop her head. The contact had been brief, but his slumber had been deep. He should be afraid of how he can’t remember if she’d ever done the same to him, unexplained bouts of tiredness he’d never considered to pin on her interference. He’s only ever been grateful for the rare peace of a restful sleep on the Path on too many nights he’d had to go without food.

But in the morning, with Cricket curled up into a ball at the foot of the bed, he swears he felt fingers tucking his hair back behind his ear, trailing over the scars, felt the press of human lips on his forehead. Yet his medallion remains eerily silent where it rests against his chest.

He doesn’t speak of it to anyone the next morning. Nor the one after that. Nor the one after that.

It requires substantial effort to be more aware of it in the daytime, the strangeness. It feels like something's shifted. If Jaskier's found anything in his poring over family histories from all over the Continent, he hasn't shared it with the rest of them, but Eskel knows how the bard works. He's a master of the seven liberal arts, he reminds them often enough; he knows better than to present his findings until he's thoroughly vetted every source, bookmarked and corroborated every story, worked out a timeline. He's spoken of the thoroughly exhausting process of publishing academic papers every time he winters at the University. It's why he'd been more than happy to winter with the Witchers instead this year. Eskel can't begrudge him for that. Else where would Lambert be but still throwing insults at the cat instead of flicking the feather wand around at night when they're gathered together in the library. 

Yet he can't shake the feeling that something is different and that Jaskier is somehow responsible for it, even though he doubts it was intentional. It was merely that he'd left her in the bard's care while he patched up a section of the roof that hadn't withstood the onslaught of snow nearly as well as the rest of the keep had in the wake of the latest storm. When he'd returned, she had been restless, and later that night, his medallion hummed against his chest though, to all the world, Cricket appeared soundly asleep at the foot of the bed.

For all intents and purposes however, Cricket gives him very little to work with. His medallion only hums when she's actively changing size or when she maintains her larger, more impressive form. She can manipulate heat in her smaller form, but it's not until she's at least as large as a dog that she can release small bursts of fire from her tail tip and only in her largest form can she truly breathe fire. She runs hot constantly and can transfer that warmth by contact, even using that skill to pull victims to sleep. Although  _ victim _ is not quite the word Eskel would like to use, it is unfortunately the only word that fits. Nothing she can do lines up with anything he's ever heard of, nothing from even the oldest records from when the First Witchers walked the Path, fought the first monsters until they went extinct.

Everything that she is defies all Witcher knowledge.

Sometimes he catches a glimpse of a shadow, but it's so fleeting, he doesn't dare bring it up to the others. As soon as he blinks, it's gone before he ever has a chance to puzzle out what it is he's even seen.

Other times he has visions of a strange woman wandering the halls, always at night. The last time a woman walked through Kaer Morhen it was in the form of a sorceress named Yennefer, and she moved with power in every step, a challenge in every breath. But this one was different for what little he saw of her. He never felt anything but calm when he spotted her, a fan of long mouse brown hair, the tail of a pale yellow ribbon, rarely anything more, and never anything of substance. She was merely another ghost in a keep full of dead things, memories lost to the ravages of time.

His nights only get stranger from there once he starts looking for incongruities. 

He's not quite sure he's dreaming, but the fear that he is keeps his eyes firmly shut, his breathing even. Fingers trace his scars with what can only be described as a loving touch. A warm press of lips to the torn skin almost has him abandoning the guise of sleep. The mattress shifts beneath him as the owner of those lips shift around. His lips part with a sigh when the fingers brush the edge of his ear, tucking behind it a lock of hair. He lets it grow longer as the days warm again, in some futile hope that it might hide the scars that send children running to their parents when he returns to the Path after the thaw. It takes every ounce of effort now to keep his eyes closed as the lips press another kiss to his forehead, two thumbs brush across his cheekbones. Really it would only be too easy to tilt his face upward to catch those lips with his. Perhaps it might even be enough to catch his curious ghost unawares.

When he strains his ears through the fog settling over his mind, he can just make out the words before sleep drags him back under. They sound forlorn, so full of sadness and longing, their voice low and quiet, it’s barely a whisper, "I fear my time here is almost up. The bard is more clever than any of you realize."

The hand on his ruined cheek slides down to take his hand in theirs, and the mattress sinks down again as the spectre settles in beside him. He falls asleep to the feeling of circles being traced against the back of his hand and the tickle of breath against his exposed shoulder.

But there is no ghost when he wakes, not even the cat whose comforting weight he’s long since grown used to. Instead she is perched on the windowsill staring out into the cold. She does not leave her post until he opens the door to head down for breakfast.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you'll notice this one actually has a chapter title
> 
> It got long....it got really long. There's 3 parts to this one, a b and c.
> 
> Would have updated sooner but I was writing ahead of myself and testing different paths this story could take before deciding which one flowed the best. I hope you all still enjoyed.
> 
> We were supposed to go to the snow last weekend and we did but only for like 20min because we got sandwiched between a light snow in the morning and then snowstorm at night so we had to book it off the mountain before we got stuck. 
> 
> Anyway, I hope to have the rest of CH7 finished soon. I have outlines for 8 and 9.


	8. CH7b

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one where a fight breaks out and someone gets hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge huge huge thanks to my long term commenters and supporters, you make this update possible!
> 
> Please enjoy the ride!

When Jaskier finally drags himself downstairs for breakfast, he’s fairly sure that he can spy the little figures of the Witchers running in the snow outside the keep. It has to be at least waist deep by now where Cricket doesn’t wander to melt down the most common paths. Something must have crawled up Vesemir’s ass and died to make them run out in that, but it’s not his problem. A quick breakfast of butter and strawberry preserves spread over toast and he’s ready to wait for their return in the training room. Knowing them, they’ve probably been out there since dawn, or pre-dawn, heaven forbid, so they can’t be too far from finishing their required number of laps. The dark clouds overhead loom too close for it to be worth it to train outside in the courtyards, not with the threat of yet more snow on the horizon. Jaskier certainly wouldn’t be joining them if they decided to push through it, and he knows Geralt’s determined to see him a little more practiced with a sword before they leave in the spring.

Cricket and Vesemir are already there. Predictably. They sit in a tense sort of silence that Jaskier is only too happy to break, strumming a little ditty on his lute, nothing in particular, but it gets Cricket to look his way with a pleased chirp. The Witcher only groans and rubs a hand over his face. That’s fine. He only needs an audience of one to be happy.

All three wolves are panting and sweating through their shirts by the time they come into the training room, and even Jaskier can smell them from several feet away. It’s not pleasant in the least. There are much better ways to get his Witcher so hot and bothered. Geralt's head snaps towards him, and he winks, throwing a sassy little wave.

“What’s on the schedule today,” Eskel asks, far too chipper for someone who’s just run at least twelve miles already, likely more. His face is flushed, but it's about the only sign he's just come in from a run in snow deep enough to bury a man.

Vesemir jerks his head toward the cat, who is still seated in front of Jaskier, her head cocked to the side like she’s disappointed he’s stopped playing. “You’ll fight her, one-on-one. If she’s willing.”

Eskel’s eyes widen just a tad. Jaskier’s jaw drops. They all remember the first time they saw the full extent of her fire breathing abilities and how it had nearly broken through even Eskel’s barrier.

“You know how she fights now. It’s time you learned how to fight against her, properly this time.”

Cricket turns fully to face the four Witchers, looking to each of them carefully. Then she grows from house cat into lioness and trots down to wait for them on the left side of the crudely marked training field in the center of the room.

“Who’s going first?” Lambert grunts, already rolling his shoulders.

“You are,” comes Vesemir’s response.

"My pleasure."

The entire time the cat and Witcher fight, Jaskier struggles against the urge to duck behind his lute after a particularly good swipe rakes against Lambert’s sides or a wave of fire forces him back. No matter what fancy tricks Lambert tries, she keeps him on the defensive, rarely getting any closer than four feet, never close enough to do more than brush the white hairs of her coat with the tip of his sword. He’s lagging, dragging his fight, and Vesemir shouts at him where he needs to block, but it’s always too late, the Witcher always too slow to get out of the way. Only by his quick thinking, casting Igni to fight literal fire with fire, is he finally able to get in a good hit. Cricket doesn't notice the dagger he flings at her until it's already sunk into her chest.

Unfortunately for Lambert, the wound isn't crippling. She pulls it from her flesh with a paw, and though blood drips steadily from the wound, she only turns up the heat.

Eventually he has to concede when he no longer has the strength to cast even Aard while the cat watches him with haughty eyes. He staggers off the field and slumps into a seat beside the bard with a groan. His wounds are already healing, and Jaskier knows that of the two fighters, Cricket was the one holding back.

Geralt only moderately does any better, but no amount of cheering on Jaskier’s part seems to nudge the odds more in the Witcher’s favor. He’s forced to rely on his Signs as Lambert had, and perhaps it’s the benefit of age, but it looks like he’s actually wearing her down with multiple strikes of Aard. A particularly strong gust sends her reeling back on her hind legs, giving him a chance to strike at her soft belly.

But it comes at a cost. He’s too close, and when she comes back down, he’s far, far too close. There’s no chance for him to dodge out of the way of the swipe that sends him rolling several feet away with a cloud of dust trailing after him. Jaskier hopes he gets up, hopes he doesn’t. 

He stands and snatches up a crossbow from the long table of weapons before standing in front of Cricket once more. His jaw is clenched, and his golden glare is locked on the cat, her fire-tipped tail a dangerous whip behind her. She ducks her head, but she knows better than to charge directly. They circle each other for several long moments before she breaks first. She sends a stream of fire right at Geralt, but Geralt doesn’t fire immediately. He shifts incrementally to the left and shoots. 

Jaskier swears that there was something unnatural about her scream when the bolts strike flesh. Perhaps it’s just the musings of a bard, trained to hear the faintest intricacies in music and sound, but he is willing to bet all of his meager coin that it’s more than just a run-of-the-mill monster’s cry. It sounds layered almost like two screams overlapping, one beastial and one very clearly, rather frighteningly human. His shock is brief though, just as Geralt’s triumph in finally striking the beast.

In the next moment, she overpowers Geralt, knocks him onto his back on the floor, bares her teeth in his face, his arms uselessly pinned to either side under her paws.

He yields and she backs off so he can return to his feet and nurse his wounds.

“That didn’t go well,” Jaskier comments.

Geralt grunts. Predictable really. He’s bleeding from a cut on his temple gained from his fall, but it’s a small thing compared to the long lines of red that dance across his torso, a matching set to Lambert’s own wounds.

Eskel’s already moving to the center of the room, giving his sword a few experimental swings to loosen himself up. Across from him, Cricket is still trying to reach around to gnaw off the single bolt that Geralt managed to pin into her side, just behind her left shoulder, but it’s too close to get the right angle.

“Will they not remove it first?” Jaskier asks in shock.

“Fuck no, give the man a fighting chance,” Lambert shoots back. He knocks back a large gulp of ale and wipes his mouth with his sleeve, grimacing when he realizes he’s just smeared the blood from his sleeve onto his face.

Vesemir doesn’t say anything, just nods to Eskel, and the fight begins.

Jaskier doesn’t like it at all. Even with a limp, Cricket can cover ground startlingly fast, and on the occasions that the pain makes her stumble, she pushes Eskel back with another blast of fire. Yet for every blast, she finally seems to be growing weaker. Perhaps it’s the combination of the length of the fight and the bolt in her shoulder, but she dodges more than she attacks for the first time all morning. 

It still isn’t enough.

A few good swings of his sword, more than a few decent blocks with Quen, Eskel is still losing ground. She tears back onto her hind legs, her lips pulled back into a snarl, but the moment the flame begins as a flicker in the back of her throat, Eskel uses a Sign the others hadn’t with her.  _ Axii _ .

Jaskier sees it take effect in the looseness of her limbs, the way that she seems to shrink down from the fearsome beast that fought Lambert and Geralt, just a smidge, but then, like a rubber band snapping, like a dam bursting at the seams, he  _ feels  _ the shift in the air before it all goes wrong.

He lurches forward in his seat, but the words are trapped in his throat. He can’t get them out fast enough.

Beside him, Geralt jumps to his feet, already running, Lambert hot on his heels. Vesemir looks caught, one foot ahead of the other.

But not one of them is fast enough to pull Eskel out of the way.

Cricket charges, blue fire streaming out of the corners of her mouth, both eyes have glow a haunting white, and before Eskel can so much as raise his arm to cast Quen, her jaws close around his right arm. Her fangs pierce straight through leather, right into the flesh. She slams him down against the floor and shakes him savagely, as if he’s nothing more than a ragdoll. Even Jaskier hears it when the bone finally snaps, and she flings him to the side.

Then, the very second Eskel’s head cracks back against the stone, she snaps back into herself.

Her eyes fade back to peridot and sapphire, and the moment they fall upon the limp form of her master lying slumped against the wall, the ruin of his right arm still smoking, she shrinks in on herself. She backpedals so rapidly she trips over her own legs, and when she spies the Witchers, her ears go flat against her head. She pants heavily, but she stands frozen with her left forearm pulled close against her chest.

Jaskier is grateful he’s not a Witcher. He can only imagine how it must feel, to be able to smell everything, the blood, the burns, the hate, the anger, the betrayal. His heart goes out to Cricket, it does, and if that makes him weak, so be it. But he  _ felt  _ it. She wasn’t herself. She would never have hurt him so badly. Burns heal worse than cuts. Already Lambert’s side is nearly fully healed, she’d taken such care not to cut too deeply. She would never have broken a bone if she’d been fully in control of herself. He knows she must be frightened of retribution, and he can’t blame her. He can see it in the white knuckles of Lambert’s hand around his sword.

The second Geralt steps towards her, his fist clenching around his sword hilt, she breaks. All his eyes can track is a white blur, and she’s gone.

Before Lambert can begin the charge after her, Vesemir catches him with an arm across his chest. Jaskier shudders at the rage simmering in the dark pools of his eyes. 

“She couldn’t pass through the wards without a Witcher before. Nor can she leave without one,” Vesemir reminds them, and Jaskier hates how steady he sounds, how sure he is that her capture is inevitable. Cricket is little more than a mouse caught in a maze, only there would be no cheese, no escape, only death at the hands of Witchers.

So he drinks.

He leaves the Witchers to make their plans, Jaskier wanders back to the kitchen. He drinks his tea with shaking hands and tries to forget the stench of burning flesh. 

* * *

Geralt and Lambert come down from Eskel’s room some time later, well into the afternoon, while Jaskier slumps over his collection of books. Vesemir is notably absent, and Jaskier tries not to imagine what the old Witcher could be doing. The two Witchers try to play a game of Gwent, but it’s soon obvious it’s a lost cause. Their minds are still too caught up in the memory of what happened only hours ago. They stay only long enough to finish a few mugs each of ale before they retire to bed early.

They’ll most likely meditate, skip dinner, but unlike them, Jaskier still likes to eat. Likes to cook too, but it feels wrong, empty without his friendly shadow watching him. Sometimes she taps on little jars of spices for him to add to whatever he’s making, and she’s never steered him wrong before. He looks down to the side of the hearth and his heart aches at the emptiness where she should be.

She was Eskel’s first and foremost as much as a cat can belong to anyone, staunchly independent little things, but Jaskier likes to believe he’s her second favorite. He is a cat person, through and through. What’s not to love about animals that groom themselves for you? Feed themselves? It’s all the companionship with none of the intensive training and care that dogs involve. Perhaps it’s just the bitterness talking. The master of the hounds back home had always been a prick, and Jaskier is more than glad to be rid of the man. There’s only so many times you can boast about a fox hunt before they all sound the same.

It’s strange how empty the keep feels though without their little friend. Empty and cold. He knows it’s well into winter and a little chill is just a fact of life this far north, but with Cricket, the cold has never felt so deep, so inescapable. He has to throw on more layers and still he wraps a blanket around his shoulders as he moves around the library, returning the books that proved to be useless and pulling down more that might just be another dose of false hope, but if there’s anything he can find that will prove that she’s not a monster, not worthy of killing, then he’ll keep searching.

Only when he startles awake to find the stars shining outside does he admit he might serve her better with some sleep.

Eskel’s room is on the way up to Geralt’s. It’s only natural that Jaskier stops by.

What isn’t natural is that he hears a voice when he approaches the door. A thin stream of light slips past the crack between the door and the wall, and Eskel really should see to that once he’s well again, keep out the draft and all that, though with a fire-aligned demon cat, Jaskier supposes the need is not so pressing. 

His breath catches at the thought though that that might be changing soon. He didn’t hang around after the Witchers had carried Eskel off to be treated for his burns and concussion; he hadn't wanted to hear their plans for the cat. He knows they wouldn’t have listened to him anyway. He was too soft for the Path; there were just some creatures that couldn’t be trusted, Jaskier; creatures that were better off dead, for everyone’s safety. There was only one logical conclusion he could make, and it didn’t need to be said aloud. Their drawn faces had said enough back in the training room.

Now though, he lingers, hangs back in the shadow, straining to hear the voice. They’re quiet, speaking barely above a whisper, but even if they spoke up, he doubts he could have picked out much more of their words given the soft, breathy sobs that broke up her speech. He’s sure it’s a woman, the voice is too soft, too gentle to be anything else. He creeps closer to the door and hopes that he passes unnoticed.

“I’m so sorry, Eskel,” she breathes out, and from here, Jaskier can hear her sniffling. “I’ll go, I promise, I’ll go and never come back, if that’s what you want.”

His heart breaks at the sorrow in her voice, and he shifts to step away from the door. For once in his life, courtesy overpowers curiosity.

But then he hears her say, “I promised that I would never hurt you, now look at you.”

And part of Jaskier wants nothing more than to slam the door open to see what is happening, but his heart is racing already with the ideas already coming together in his mind.

Her voice softens though, and he stays put. “At least I can heal you before I go, this is one set of scars I can still fix.” She laughs a little, but very quickly she has to choke back another sob. “I just ask that you make it quick. I won’t fight. Not if it’s you.”

He has to clap his hands over his mouth to keep himself quiet. Whoever she is, whatever she is, the voice  _ is _ Cricket. It takes every ounce of self-control not to bolt immediately, but the second he creeps out to the main stairway, he’s running as fast as his legs can carry him.

Then, just before he reaches the landing where he turns to go to Geralt’s room, he stalls. Geralt’s the closest thing Eskel has to a brother and vice versa. If Jaskier tells him he’s just heard Cricket in Eskel’s room, he’ll hunt her down, no questions asked. He sighs and rubs his tired eyes, but he can’t continue on, not to sleep at least.

His mind is running far too quickly to allow him the respite of sleep so Jaskier does what he tends to do. He wanders. It’s much easier now that he knows the general layout of the keep, but he sticks mostly to the hallways he traverses the most often. When he’s as distracted as he is, he knows he’s prone to wandering where he shouldn’t and getting lost.

He knows what he heard though. What he doesn’t know is where to go from here. He’s fairly certain Cricket hadn’t heard him eavesdropping. It’s strange to keep calling her Cricket though he has nothing else to go off of, no other name in the records. She must have some other name she prefers, something given to her or something taken. She wouldn’t be the first to hear a name she liked and made it her own. 

The  _ tink tink _ of glass against glass startles him, and he looks up from his shuffling feet to find himself in the laboratory where Geralt generally forces him to stay back in the hallway, not due to the dangerous nature of potion brewing, but because he doesn’t trust the bard not to curb his curiosity. Which is fair, but still rude. Jaskier is quite capable of restraining himself when he must. There’s just the little problem of their definitions of “when he must” don’t often align with each other.

He’s hardly gotten any sleep at all so he blinks several times to check if he’s hallucinating, pinches himself to see if he  _ is _ miraculously asleep and just dreaming, but no, no, he is rather unfortunately bone-tired and dreadfully awake.

There’s a woman there at the tall laboratory bench. Her hair appears a dark brown in the dim lighting of the lab, but there’s no mistaking the yellow of the ribbon that holds back half of it. Both the ribbon and their hair reach down to the middle of her back. The green dress goes to her ankles, short enough not to drag against the ground no thanks to the simple flat slippers that have little to no place in somewhere as cold as Kaer Morhen. She has to be some sort of nobility, but Jaskier imagines that nobles were a scarce commodity this far north, even just for Witchers, nevermind visiting women. If she’s a spectre he’s dreaming up, a ghostly afterimage of someone long past, she’s a rare thing.

Yet he cannot bring himself to believe that she is anything but corporeal, here and in the present moment. There’s something too sharp about the shape of her, the shadows she casts on the walls. Her hands move with a practiced ease over glass bottles, stirring this one and that one, measuring out different powders and oils. There is a low flicker of flame going under a flask and something smells awful in the air. Awful but familiar. It smells like Geralt when he’s had a day of brewing Witcher potions.  _ Pungent. _

He looks past the woman to the workbench and finds several bottles already labeled, two different mixtures based on the color of the wax sealing the corks in place.

He’s too tired to even think when his nose tickles. The sneeze rips it way through him so powerfully he stumbles back. As soon as he realizes what’s happened, he looks up with wide eyes, locking gazes with the woman at the workbench. He blinks without meaning to, and the woman is gone and Cricket’s scrambling between his legs and sprinting down the hallway.

“Wait!” he cries out, then winces at how loud his voice comes out in the relative silence of the early morning. “Don’t go. I, um, I don’t know how to finish those.”

The cat pauses at the end of the hallway, and, bless every star in the sky, she turns and sits. It’s a start even if she looks ready to run.

“I won’t tell anyone, not unless you want me to, and I won’t make you leave,” he promises before he can think twice about whether it’s the right choice, but she seems so lost and afraid he can’t imagine saying anything else. He wants to help her. “You want to help him, don’t you? That’s all you want, isn’t it? You can trust me.”

Watching her change from feline into human form is a lot stranger and more disorienting than the opposite direction, and Jaskier’s stomach churns uneasily. She grows larger first, then stretches herself up onto her hind legs, then the thick limbs grow thinner, clothes thankfully morphing with her.

“What are you?” he breathes out when the transformation is complete. He’s a little shocked that her eyes are normal, a striking blue not unlike his own. They could have been siblings in another life, he muses. If she’s as old as he suspects she might be, fuck, she could be a long lost ancestor of his. His brows knit together. Huh, he’ll have to look into his own genealogy next.

She shakes her head with a gentle smile and approaches him. She holds out a hand and he places his hand in hers. She turns it over, palm up, traces a line in his palm, and for the first time since he’s known her as the cat, he feels a rush of cool energy flowing through him right until she lets his hand fall back to his side.

“You love the white-haired one, don’t you?” And she says the word so easily, so softly that it makes his heart ache because yes, he does, with all his heart. “If I told you, he would hear it when you lied. I could not put you in that position. I won’t.”

He gestures to the bottles and the potions still going on the bench. They’ll have to address that sooner rather than later. He doesn’t want to know what happens when they sit over heat for too long. The way Geralt’s looked at him in the past, he can’t imagine it’s anything good. “Why are you doing all this? Can you tell me that?”

Her face falls, and he’s certain tears will follow. He takes up her hands between his and squeezed in what he hopes is a comforting way. Thankfully, the tears don’t fall, but she shakes from the effort of keeping them back.

“I hurt him. I didn’t mean to, but I did. I can’t take it back, but I can do this,” she explains in a watery voice.

That’s when he wanders over to find that they’re all for healing, she must have been working on White Honey too. Now that he’s closer he can read the writing on the bottles still waiting to be filled. “You know how to brew potions?”

She nods. “Eskel is not the first Witcher I’ve ever followed, but he let me stay the longest,” she says, stepping up beside him to adjust the flame under the flask. “He didn’t hunch over when he made them. I knew roughly how to make them before, from watching the other one, but even though he couldn’t see me, Eskel explained to me what he was doing.”

“Geralt doesn’t let me help beyond bringing him the components.”

“I can show you,” she offers and her bright smile is genuine when she turns to him, snatching up his hands again in hers. “Then you won’t have to lie when you tell the others you made them and not me.”

He laughs and bumps shoulders with her. “Hm, how much do you want to bet Geralt still won’t believe me?”

Although she smiles, she stays quiet for a moment, just watching him. He can feel the warmth swelling around her before dropping away when she glances back to the bottles. “Thank you,” she whispers.

Then she shakes her shoulders loose, long brown hair fluttering behind her, before she picks up her utensils and fixes the bard with a hard stare. “Just do as I do, and let’s see if we can keep this place in one piece, alright?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Jaskier says with a mock salute and settles in beside her.

She’s a good teacher, and a charming conversationalist, if he manages to get her onto a tangent. He learns so much of what Eskel’s like on the Path, how different his life is from Geralt’s but also how similar. While he smiles more easily, speaks more softly, he is still faced with the discrimination of what he is but also how he looks. The scars are not easy for many people to get past. Cricket’s voice goes soft when she explains how she would stay behind on his hunts to comfort the children who’d lost a parent or both to the monsters that he’d been contracted to kill. How it endeared them to him in turn. It’s not hard to see that the love he has for Geralt, she similarly has for Eskel. His heart breaks when she tells him that she’s okay with how they are, or how they were, before she hurt him.

They’re putting the stoppers into the bottles of White Honey when she pauses and has to wipe away a stray tear. Her breath shakes, and Jaskier hastily seals his bottle before pulling her into a hug. Her arms snake around his waist and she sobs against his chest.

“I can’t ask him to forgive me, I can’t, not after I hurt him,” she whispers, pushing herself away from the bard. “There are some questions that I would rather not have answered, not right now at least.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, but I promise I’ll do my best to keep you safe until then. Whatever you are, you are  _ good _ ,” he swears, presses a kiss to the crown of her head. It’s nice to not be the shortest person in the room again. “Now, let’s finish labeling these and see if we can’t get some shut eye before morning. Sound good?”

“Yes, sounds good,” and she yawns big and wide, and he’s helpless to fight the yawn that pulls itself from him in response.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry.....that's all I gotta say. I'm sorry.
> 
> I love her, but sorry. Sometimes bad things happen.


	9. CH7c

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which the Witchers miss the scent of lilacs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for still reading with me 😭 I love you all

The sudden slam of the door meeting the wall startles Jaskier awake, and the second his head jerks up from where he’d pillowed it against his crossed arms, he groans. His neck aches, his back aches, everything just  _ aches _ , and he remembers that he never made it back to the room, instead hunching over the cleared workbench, swearing that he was just shutting his eyes for a minute. He glances out the window and finds the sun well into the sky. His head drops back into his arms. He’s determined not to lift his head again, but for a second, the thought of Cricket being caught forces him to look around the room in alarm, head still reeling from his rude awakening.

A green and a blue eye blink back at him from behind one of the shelves, tucked deep into the shadows, and a soft chuckle can be heard from the doorway. For a moment, he thinks of coaxing her forwards before the better, more awake part of his brain remembers that she’s supposed to be hiding from the Witchers.

“Didn’t see you at breakfast, Geralt worried,” he hears Lambert say, then the soft scuffing of boots against the stone floor, the  _ tink _ of glass bottles that drew Jaskier inside in the first place. “Have to say, this wasn’t where I expected to find you. You make all these?”

“Yes, actually, now please leave so I can go back to sleep,” Jaskier grumbles but doesn’t lift his head again.

“Full offense, bard, but I don’t want to risk taking anything you’ve made. I’ve heard the stories from Geralt.”

“It was  _ one time _ and he was the one who mislabeled the thing in the first place!” Jaskier cries and rips his head up from the desk to glower at the still smirking Witcher. “Besides, I found a much better teacher, and it’s  _ your  _ loss if you don’t want any of it.”

Blearily, he can just make out the shape of Cricket tap-tapping her paw on the floor in front of her. He glances down at the workbench and spies a small jar he doesn’t remember filling the night before. He squints at it but picks it up, turning it in his hands. There’s no label on the dark green glass, oddly pomegranate-shaped, it sits nicely in his palm, its bottom flat, but it has a strong medicinal scent even to him with maybe the barest hint of lavender and honey. He passes it to Lambert, who takes it with a confused expression.

“For Eskel, for the burns,” he explains, and he hopes to every god that’s out there that he’s right, that he’s read Cricket’s intent correctly. She nods though, a minute bob of her head, but she does, and he stumbles off his stool with far less grace than usual and another wince. He’s getting too old for sleeping hunched over desks. “Now, I’m going to get breakfast for myself if there’s anything left after you beasts.”

He heaves out a sigh of relief once he feels he’s far enough away and leans his back against the wall. It’s enough that he can’t hear it when Lambert leaves, he just hopes that he goes quickly so that Cricket can follow. After what feels like too long a time, she finally trots up to him, brushing herself against his leg. Then she stretches upwards while he averts his eyes. His stomach really can’t take too many transformations today, not before breakfast at least, just a bite of bread to settle his stomach.

“Thank you,” she murmurs when she’s fully human again, as much as she can be, leaning against the wall opposite him. Two pairs of blue eyes meet, and she smiles.

“I was right then? It’s for his burns?”

She nods and fiddles with a thread on her dress. “Yes, just something I picked up from another master. Thank you for helping me get it to him.”

“Will you go back to him?” he asks.

She looks at him strangely then stares down at the floor, her hair sliding over her shoulder to hang around her face. “I don’t know. I mean, I want to, I just-”

“It’s okay, I understand,” he says even though he doesn’t, not really, he’s certainly never been hunted by Witchers, but he can guess at the words she struggles to say. “I don’t mind having such lovely company, but you should visit him soon. He’s not the sort to hold grudges. He’ll forgive you.”

“You don’t know that,” she counters, but there’s no heat in it, just a resigned, quiet sadness. Then she must hear something because by the time he looks to the end of the hallway and back, she’s already returned to her cat form, striding further away in the direction of the kitchen.

"Wait, how come Lambert didn't know you were in there?" He shouts after her, but she only trots faster ahead of him.

* * *

The hour is past late by the time Geralt opens the door to their room. Jaskier's seen him come back from hunts looking better than this. Dark bags have made a home under his eyes and his shoulders droop with an exhaustion that he aches to massage away, but the Witcher hardly seems in the mood. Jaskier surprises himself by not pressing the matter. Some days he can read a room  _ and _ listen to it.

“It shouldn’t be this hard to find  _ one  _ cat,” Geralt grunts, shoving off his boots by the doorway, a habit that Jaskier is pleased to see the Witcher still respects even in his own home. It was hard enough the first time convincing him of the necessity for rented rooms in inns and taverns.

“I thought you could sniff her out.”

“She can regulate her scent, it’s something I’ve never heard of before, probably has something to do with how she regulates heat around herself. We can’t even track her here.”

“What will you do when you find her?”

“Don’t know yet. Have to ask Eskel how he feels first.”

“And after that?”

Geralt shrugs out of his sweater and crawls into bed with him, letting himself go slack in the bard’s arms. Jaskier’s hand comes up to card through the silvery white strands when the Witcher leans his head against his chest.

“Don’t know. Don’t blame her, but she  _ is _ dangerous. We can’t treat her like she isn’t anymore.”

“What about Vesemir?”

Geralt sighs and curls his arm over Jaskier’s stomach, heavy and warm. “Don’t know, don’t think he wants us to kill her, but his patience is wearing thin the longer this drags on.”

Jaskier’s heartrate eases at the thought that Cricket, for the moment, is untraceable and that, at present, the aim is more to capture than to kill. It’s nice to know that her life isn't yet at stake, despite being trapped and surrounded on all sides.

During the day, she’s able to find him and thanks to her much more acute hearing, they’ve yet to be caught out. Although he dearly misses the benefit of her warmth on the colder days. She feels like just a regular old cat when he runs his fingers through her long hair just before she darts off again. Then there are the times they simply sit in the library together, reading late into the night. So far, no one has mentioned anything about how many hours Jaskier spends there, but it’s a quiet place away from the hustle and bustle of the keep, overturning furniture and laying traps that Jaskeir already knows won’t work. What good is a snare when your prey has opposable thumbs?

As Geralt drifts off, uncharacteristically early for him, Jaskier returns to his reading.

Earlier in the library, Cricket had passed him a small book with a haunted expression on her face. According to the gold lettering on the front, it’s the family history of a clan he hasn’t heard of in a long time. They had been some sort of minor nobility, not quite large enough or important enough to teach in the general curriculum at Oxford, but the names look familiar. There’d been some power struggles for autonomy with their nearness to Nilfgaard. But then he’d never liked traveling that far south so very quickly he stopped hearing of them altogether, finding much better courts to play at farther from the threat of war. Then she’d asked him to play a song he was shocked he still remembered, his fingers moving over the strings a little stiffly but the notes were true and clear.

And unbearably sad.

He did not look towards her the remainder of the song, but he could not drown out the sound of her soft whimpers by the fire.

She disappeared into the dark before the last note faded, and Jaskier had brought the book to bed feeling colder than ever.

Turning the little thing over in his hands, he wonders how it came into the possession of a Witcher. It’s an old thing and clearly a family history of mere mortals. He can’t imagine it being anything of value, but then, looking at Geralt, he wonders if it was yet another product of the Law of Surprise. Perhaps the family had commissioned the book and had not known when it would arrive, or perhaps it had been a gift. It was not uncommon for such histories to be reworked every few generations to keep records accurate. If it was a claim, then it is an innocent one by all appearances and a blessing now for whatever answers it contains.

At first he reads purely because he’s a sucker for history and sordid tales of affairs long since past, but very quickly, his eyelids grow heavy and he’s forced to rapidly flip through the pages, gold-edged, how fancy, in search of illustrations.

It takes a minute to register in his sleep-addled brain, but by the third time he’s gone from front to back, he knows his eyes aren’t playing tricks on him. He scans through the names beneath the painstakingly painted miniature portraits, mentally bookmarks the years they were done, and he can feel his eyes widening with the realization.

_ “Just something I picked up for another master” _ suddenly takes on a different context. How many other masters had there been before Eskel? No wonder she was so intelligent, she had  _ decades _ , or perhaps even centuries of knowledge and experience to draw upon. 

It’s not until he reaches the very end that he makes his greatest discovery. A yellowed piece of parchment is folded up and tucked in between the last two pages, and he carefully unfolds it, half afraid that it will crumble into dust at the slightest touch and half worried by the thought of what he might find written there.

It’s a notice, warning all citizens of the region to be especially cautious of wandering after dark. Beneath it, a contract for a Witcher to destroy a beast that was claimed to lay an entire family to waste. Jaskier’s heart drops into his stomach, and he feels cold. He has so many questions, and unfortunately there is only one soul alive he can ask.

For now, Jaskier replaces the notice and hides both in his pillowcase before he rolls over and wills himself to fall asleep. At least once this week, he needs a decent amount of rest. At Geralt’s request he hadn’t forced Roach to carry all his skincare products, and if he doesn’t get some real sleep soon, he’s going to run out of what little he brought trying to convince the Witchers that he did not in fact have bags under his eyes.

* * *

The first thing he notices when he wakes up is how cold it is in his room. He’s never really had to deal with it too much between Cricket’s innate warmth and her tendency to relight the fire when it starts to die down. As cold as it is, he knows she’s gone and she hasn’t visited him once in the night. There are no dips in the bedspread from little feet. He can’t even scent her in the air. He misses the smell of lilacs that used to permeate his clothes, but it’s gone, and he feels suddenly rather empty without it.

The next thing he notices is the persistent ache and itch on his right arm.

He sucks in a breath at the memory. With how quickly everything happened, he knows he has to thank his lucky stars he hadn’t ended up with more damage. Still, he lifts his arm and grimaces at the extent of the bandaging from his wrist to several inches past his elbow. He knew she’d gotten him good, he hadn’t thought she’d been that good. He just remembers blinding pain, between the heat and the savage grip of her teeth, and then the pain flooded every inch of his body as he struck the wall, but that at least had been brief.

“Where’s Cricket?” he asks. His mouth feels like it’s full of cotton, and he guzzles the glass of water that Geralt holds out to him.

“Hiding,” the white-haired Witcher grunts.

“Why?” He drinks another glass and slumps back against the pillows.

“Vesemir’s angry.”

“And you aren’t?”

“Some creatures are resistant to Axii,” he says the words like he’s reciting a book passage.

“You don’t blame her.”

“Hm.”

Geralt doesn’t stay long, just keeps pouring out water for him until the pitcher has emptied, then he leaves, muttering something about dinner. Only after he’s gone does Eskel think he should have asked how long he’d been asleep. At least he still has the strength to cast Igni at the fireplace and return some of the warmth to the room, but he’s instantly aware of the difference. The warmth of the fire doesn’t quite reach all the way to the bed with the meager supply of wood that’s still there. Even if it did, it would only reach as far as his left side compared to the all-encompassing warmth that Cricket generally provided. He tries not to be too disheartened by her absence.

Suddenly he can’t blame Geralt for all his winters moping without his bard.

As soon as he can stand without stumbling, he shoulders on a coat and shoves his feet into his boots, determined to go looking for the cat when he practically runs right into Lambert in the hallway. The younger Witcher dramatically shoves a glass jar against his chest so hard he fears he might actually bruise from it, but surprisingly the jar doesn’t break. He lifts it up, but there isn’t a label to tell him what it’s for.

“The bard made it for your burns. Apparently he’s a potion-making master now too. Found him dead asleep in the lab surrounded by tons of them,” Lambert explains, his brows still furrowed in confusion. He shakes his head and claps Eskel on the shoulder. “We’ll find her.”

Eskel’s voice catches in his throat. He has to settle for nodding his gratitude because he can’t trust himself not to reveal himself. Lambert never liked Cricket. Even after all of Jaskier’s hard work intervening to make peace between them, Eskel knows Lambert has no reason to hold back now that she’s harmed him. Especially if Vesemir approves. Once Lambert’s disappeared up the steps, Eskel takes a deep breath and tries to isolate the faint smell of lilacs that follows her around, but for a creature that’s called the place home for months now, he can detect no trace of her, nothing recent enough to suggest where she might be found. It’s too large a keep for him to search every room without a lead, she’s quick enough and no doubt smart enough only to move into rooms they’ve already cleared, but he’s afraid what might happen if either Lambert or Vesemir find her first.

“You smell like her,” is the first thing Eskel says when Jaskier approaches him in the stables.

“If that’s your way of asking if I’ve seen her, the answer is no. She just likes to sleep on my things is my guess,” Jaskier shrugs with feigned nonchalance, but the Witcher doesn’t say anything, just returns to his work.

Eskel tugs up at the edges of his sleeves, wincing when the fabric catches against the bandages around his right arm, but he hates getting the conditioning wax in his clothes.The movement attracts the bard’s attention.

“How’s your arm,” he asks tentatively.

Eskel sighs and sets aside the bundle of reins. He’s nearly done wiping off the excess wax and it already feels perfectly supple in hand, but curse him for being a perfectionist. He spends enough time on horseback it’s worth the extra effort to be comfortable. He flexes his fingers and rolls his wrist in a circular motion. The fresh pink skin beneath the linen wrappings tugs a little, but it’s nothing horrible, nothing he isn’t already used to from his line of work. “It’s fine. Break's healed. Skin's still healing. I hear I have you to thank for the cream.”

The bard’s heart rate ticks up a little, and Eskel cocks his head to one side. Jaskier shifts back slightly, and it resettles after a deep breath. “Don’t thank me,” he says after the moment passes. It’s not a lie, but nor does it feel like the whole truth.

“Well,  _ if _ you see her,” and Eskel lowers his head, dark hair forming a curtain around his face, “tell her I don’t blame her. I just, I just miss her.”

He doesn’t mean for it to sound so sad, but it must. Jaskier awkwardly steps forward again to pat the Witcher on the shoulder before he hops backwards, already spinning on one heel that would be dangerous had he not miraculously performed the motion on perhaps the one spot in the doorway not affected by ice.

“I’ll, um, well, I’ll leave her a note if she comes to visit me in the night,” Jaskier promises, but then he pauses again, his heart beating a little faster.

Eskel waits for him to speak, spins some little tool between his fingers for a few seconds then glances up at the bard. “Was there something else?”

Jaskier clears his throat and shakes his head. “Just thinking, lyrics, bard things, melodies just flitting in and out, not an unusual occurrence, I promise you, but, um, I’ll just leave you to your, I’ll just leave,” he rambles, but this time he does go, shuffles off back inside with his shoulders hunched up around his ears.

Something is definitely off with the bard, but Eskel isn’t sure he wants to dig into why.

For the briefest moment, he thinks he smells lilacs in the breeze that weaves through the keep, but when he follows the trail, all he finds is Geralt eating stew in the dining hall.

“You’re staring,” Geralt grunts, but he doesn’t lift his eyes from the stew in front of him, just takes another spoonful into his mouth.

Eskel blinks. He hadn’t even realized. “I smelled lilacs,” he says slowly.

Geralt doesn’t budge, except to continue eating. “Hm.”

“Have you seen Cricket come through here?”

“If I had, do you think I’d still be here?”

It’s not an unusual answer coming from Geralt, but Eskel can’t shake the feeling of  _ offness _ . His medallion doesn’t feel any different where it lies against his skin, and he sniffs the air just for good measure, but he smells entirely Geralt. There’s just the faint hint of lilacs that hangs around him, but if she’s already sleeping in Jaskier’s clothes, it’s not too difficult to imagine she would also make a nest of Geralt’s. He grew up with him, he knows Geralt is about as likely to actually fold his clothes as he is to kiss a drowner. 

Perhaps it’s just the absence of Cricket that makes him feel off. He’s gotten so used to her presence that her sudden disappearance has him off kilter.

“Sorry I bothered you then, I’ll keep looking.”

“Hm.”

Eskel pauses in the doorway to look over his shoulder. Geralt just continues on as if he’d never been disturbed.

* * *

Jaskier creeps into the room, feet moving over the stone nearly whisper quiet, and he shuts the door behind him, careful not to make a sound. Geralt glances up from his sword, hands freezing . It doesn’t explicitly need sharpening, but he hates to be caught unawares with a dull blade. Plus it’s relaxing. And a habit. He sleeps easier knowing that if something startles him in the night, his sword is ready for a fight.

“What will you do when you find her?” the bard asks cautiously.

“What happened was an accident. I won’t hurt her, not anymore than I have to to bring her to heel, but I can’t promise Lambert or Vesemir will be as lenient.”

“You think it was an accident?”

“We’ve been through this before, Jaskier.”

“Have we?” The bard looks honestly surprised then bashful, rubbing the back of his head. “Forgive me, dear heart, it’s just been a busy few days, I must have already forgotten.”

“Are you alright,” Geralt asks and sets aside the whetstone.

Jaskier ducks away from his hand before he can rest it against his forehead with a squawk that’s odd even coming from him. The bard is capable of many sounds and Geralt has heard most of his “offended” repertoire. He raises an eyebrow and the bard hastily assures him, “I’m fine, I’m fine, I promise.”

Geralt snatches his arm and pulls him close enough to try again, but there is no sign of a fever. If anything, he’s unusually cool under the back of his hand. “You’re cold. Wear something warmer.”

The bard stands awkwardly in the center of the room where Geralt leaves him to rifle through the chest at the foot of the bed. Most of the things tucked away inside are in his size, but they aren’t so different in builds that they won’t work also for Jaskier. As he tugs the sweater over Jaskier’s head, he takes a deep breath, his nose under the bard’s jaw and pulls back with a frown.

“Why do you smell like lilacs?”

“O-oh, do I?” Jaskier chuckles. Again with rubbing the back of his neck. The sleeves are a touch too long and too loose, the material falls back to his elbow. “I think Cricket’s been sneaking in while we sleep to nest in my things.”

“No, it’s, it’s different, deeper than that,” Geralt says slowly, but the bard jerks away before Geralt can scent him again. The smell isn’t strong enough without his nose pressed to skin, it’s just barely there now that he’s aware of it, but unmistakably there.

Jaskier gulps then backs up until he hits the door. His hand reaches behind him to fumble with the knob. “I just remembered I promised Eskel I would help him with the dinner preparations. I should, um, probably get going. Those carrots won’t chop themselves.”

Geralt stares at the closed door long after Jaskier disappears behind it.

* * *

A hand fisted into the front of his shirt yanks Jaskier into a cramped corridor while another covers his mouth in time to halt the startled scream building in his throat. When his eyes readjust to the dark, he finds a pair of blue eyes staring up at him. He relaxes into her grasp, and she releases him, smoothing down his clothes with an apologetic look.

“I may have visited your Witcher. Um, just wear this for the rest of the day,” Cricket says, thrusting a dark navy blue sweater at the bard. She’s still dressed in the same dusky lavender as when they’d met. “He thinks you’re sick, I think.” 

“How’d you do that and live? No, wait, I know you can’t answer that. Sorry I asked. What did he say to you? I mean, what should I know so I don’t give us away?”

“I just asked him what he would do when he found me.”

“And? Was it a good answer? Will you go back to Eskel?”

“It was better than I hoped for, but it’s still too soon.”

“Please, Cricket, think about it. Every day you wait is just another day that you risk getting caught by Lambert or Vesemir, and you  _ know _ they won’t be kind about what they do with you.”

“I know, but I just, I can’t, Jaskier.”

Jaskier gathers her into his arms when she seems like she’s about to cry. It’s like trying to hold back a flood. He can feel it when the dam breaks and she shudders against him. Her fingers bunch up the fabric at his waist, and he feels the spot above his heart growing damp with tears, but he doesn’t care. If there is any comfort he can offer to her now, then he’s happy to stand with her in the dark as long as she needs. She is as sweet as a human as she is as a cat, but so much more lost. Adrift.

Eskel, too, isn’t any better off. He doesn’t want to call it soulmates, but screw his poetic heart for wanting to sing it from the rooftops. They are so far from whole without the other to ground them. He so desperately wants her to feel safe again. It had been so nice before, when the keep was kept warm simply by her existence. Even in his arms she feels cold. Colder than she should be, but he knows the shaking of her shoulders is not due to the chill.

She finally pulls away, wiping at the tear tracks beneath her red-rimmed eyes.

“He misses you, you know,” he tells her even though he knows it won’t change her mind.

She squeezes his hand and leans up onto her tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek. He hears a whispered thanks, and like smoke, she slips through his fingers and fades into the night. She’s gone again and he feels colder still.

He tugs the sweater on over his head and takes a deep breath.

The soft wool smells like lilacs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas to all and happy holidays!
> 
> I figure since I haven't edited this bit in a while, I should stop faffing about and post it.


	10. CH8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which some truths are finally revealed

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't think of a good summary but uh
> 
> The first one was: the one in which bad things continue to happen

A flash of light in the dark catches Vesemir’s eye as he moves through the forgotten rooms of Kaer Morhen. He sets the silver candle holder onto a nearby table and lowers himself into a squat, peering further into the dark. As his eyes readjusted, he can just make out the shape of the cat's ears above the gleaming orbs of green and blue.

“What are you doing here, little one? You should be with Eskel,” he speaks softly and slowly, careful not to frighten her.

She shivers minutely where she’s tucked herself into the far corner of the dank cell. The whole place smells of rot and mildew, centuries of pain and suffering and dried blood buried beneath several layers of dust. It smells like death and it is entirely  _ not  _ where a cat of any caliber ought to be, demonic or otherwise. He grimaces at the dampness that seeps into his clothes when he leans back against the wall, but he lets himself sink down, legs stretched out ahead of him. The scabbard at his back sit uncomfortably against the stone, but he grits his teeth and bears it. She doesn’t seem to be in any rush to get moving so neither is he. Patience is as certain a killer as speed, and he knows which he needs in this moment.

“You know, I had my doubts about you, still do,” he regards her carefully before looking to the wall opposite them.

Strange that of all the places in the keep she could have hidden herself, she chooses the dark places. Her white coat stands out in stark contrast to the shadows, to the dark stains on the walls. The Trials were cruel things back then, and Vesemir’s breath catches in his throat at the memory of all the boys that he’d raised up, just to be ripped apart by mutagens.

“You’re a good sort though. The boys are better for having you in their lives, Eskel especially.” A quick sideways glance reveals that she’s crept an inch forwards, though she’s still poised to flee if he moves to grab her, and he has no desire to be clawed tonight. He taps his right cheek meaningfully, and her head lifts, tilts, and just barely she shifts her weight, losing the tremble of tensed muscles. “Has he told you yet, I wonder. Well, little one, you needn’t know anything more than if anyone offers you the Law of Surprise, turn them down and ask for a thread from their cloak. Anything, anything at all but the Law of Surprise. As likely to be a bumper crop or a litter of pups as it is a child, a real, human child. It never turns out well for the child. Or whoever made the mistake of claiming them.”

He tilts his head towards the soft meow that erupts from the cat and offers a smile though he can’t put much heart into the gesture. It feels too empty, too hollow, especially in this place.

“You know, the worst thing I ever did to the boys, it wasn’t that I allowed them to go through the trials, it was what I did after that. Back then, I think I convinced myself that there was no harm in a white lie, meant to protect them, but looking at them now, I know how wrong I was.”

She meows again, a soft sound he is certain she means to be reassuring, creeps forward another half an inch. He fights down the satisfied smirk before it can surface.

“I convinced them all that Witchers didn’t feel. Lambert never got it into his head, he was already so full of rage, the Trials only made it worse. He never wanted to become a Witcher, and when dozens of boys died around him, he was the one once again left behind, forced to walk his Path alone. Eskel was always too soft and optimistic, I feared every day leading up to his Trials that it would be burned out of him. Of them all though, Geralt took it to heart the most. I don’t know that you were old enough to hear of it, but when they called him Butcher of Blaviken, it nearly ruined him. There was no life for him on the Path if the village folk preferred the monsters to the thought of having to deal with him. It took too many years for him to get back on the Path, and when he did, he was changed.”

Cricket doesn’t inch forward again, but it certainly feels warmer than it did than when Vesemir first sat down.

“Such is our life, as Witchers, as humans, as living things sharing this earth. We are constantly undergoing change. I think I could die happy if I could be certain that my boys would all be changed for the better. They deserve it after all the horror they've survived. Do you understand now?”

She blinks at him slowly and cocks her head to the side. Just as well. He clears his throat and breathes in deeply, letting his head fall back against the wall.

“You’re just another change in their lives, and I pray to all the gods that you will prove to be a good one. The Path is not kind to them. I could not forgive myself if in letting you stay here, I have robbed them of the last safe place in the world for them.”

Vesemir fixes her with a hard stare, and he can feel it when she pulls in all the warmth from the room. His breath forms a cloud in front of his face, his fingers burn from the sudden aching cold. Yet he dares not break eye contact first.

She’s fast, but he’s faster.

The cat’s shriek as he grabs her by the back of the neck is short-lived, as is his momentary victory. His medallion vibrates rapidly against his chest and his arm drops with the weight of the animal steadily growing in his grasp. She does not strike out to free herself, her sheer bulk does that well enough, and she takes several steps back away from him as he turns himself so he blocks the only doorway back out of the cell. The walls seem to shake with the growl that rumbles through her chest. The blue fire on her tail makes her appear more monstrous than ever before.

He draws his silver sword, silver is for monsters, he remembers telling the boys as they recovered from their trials, and readies himself for the charge. Her muscles bunch, rippling under her glossy white coat.

“What. Are. You?” he asks, emphasizing each word with a careful step forward. His left hand he holds low and at the ready to cast, but if she’s really as smart as she is, she won’t force him. A knowledgeable opponent knows when it is better to yield.

The flames only grow brighter and she pulls her lips back, exposing her massive fangs. This time, the walls actually do shake with the force of her roar. Dust and small bits of rock drop from the ceiling with small splashes into the puddles of water that have accumulated over the centuries. However, for all her posturing, she doesn’t move another muscle, her mighty paws remain firmly planted.

He feints to the left first, and she takes the bait, leaping away to the right, directly into the path of Aard. The force of the blast slams her against the wall, and quickly he follows up with a second casting, knocking her head back. She snarls, thrashing against the stone as she struggles to right herself under the onslaught. It requires great effort, but he does not pause to wipe away the sweat beading at his temples. Over and over again he beats her down, but still she fights, dragging herself along the wall, inch by devastatingly short inch. Then, just before she can stretch her paw over the edge of the doorway, he reaches down and quickly inscribes a symbol into the dirt with the tip of his sword.

There is a brief flash of light, and Cricket seizes, her muscles tense, and her eyes wide. But she remains fixed in place. 

But it’s not enough. He knows the power of his own experience. And its limits. He knows better than to trust the sign to hold for long. He only needs it to hold long enough.

Vesemir keeps his sword raised ahead of him as he circles around. He doesn’t like the low rumble of her growl that grows louder with every step closer to her head.

“You won’t get away. Not this time,” he says. “What. Are. You.”

The Witcher quickly glances at the shadows on the wall to either side of them. They flicker, and that’s to be expected given the wild, ever-changing nature of the fire that tips the creature’s tail, but beyond that, they seem to flicker  _ between shapes _ .

His gaze flicks back to the cat, and there’s a brief moment that the shadows come together behind its head, thrown up against the stone as its tail curls around itself. It’s a  _ woman. _

His attention is only caught for a fleeting moment, but apparently it’s enough. He can feel the shift in the air as Yrden fails and the trap’s power falls away. A flood of warmth surges through him and distantly he can feel himself falling, the familiar weight of his sword as it drops from his slackened grip. His ears feel as though they’ve been stuffed with cotton, his mouth suddenly dry.

Even as gentle hands cradle his head, card through his hair, even as they lower him to the floor, he struggles to keep his eyes open. Everything's so blurry, and darkness steadily creeps into the edges of his vision with every drop of his eyelids.

“-sorry, I’m so sorry, please forgive me,” she murmurs, the woman in the shadows, he’s certain of it.

Just before his eyes shut for the final time, he catches a parting glimpse of long brown hair against a background of lavender.

* * *

No one expects it when Vesemir shuffles into the library, clutching his head with one hand. His face is contorted into a grimace that has everyone frozen in their seats for far too long.

"What the fuck happened to you?"

Eskel cuffs Lambert on the back of the head and helps Vesemir into a chair.

"It was Cricket, wasn't it?" He asks, but he already knows the answer from the thin line of Vesemir's lips, the tension in his jaw. His gaze meets Geralt’s and he sighs. There will be no avoiding it then. They’ve only been drawing out the inevitable.

“I’m done waiting,” Vesemir grinds out, eyes blazing. “Dead or alive, this ends tonight.”

“Wait,” Jaskier cries before the Witchers can file back through the door. They don’t even need to stop by their rooms to retrieve their swords. The moment they pass through the door, they will become hunters. Cricket is as good as dead.

“What is it, bard?” Vesemir snaps.

He curses inwardly. If he just had the book with him, he could show them the portrait of Cricket, but for once, he’s left it in the safety of his pillowcase. “She’s not dangerous.”

The Witcher’s eyes flash with a violent glint.

“She isn’t!” He argues. “What happened to Eskel  _ was _ an accident. Vesemir, sir, I know you have your reasons to be wary, but what exactly did she do to you? Putting you to sleep is a far cry from willfully hurting someone, don’t you think?”

“You’re soft, bard. Leave this to the judgment of the monster hunters. A Witcher one-on-one could not stand against her, but four? This ends now.”

Eskel glances his way, but the Witcher says nothing as he follows his brothers out the door. Vesemir growls an order for him to stay upstairs, to keep himself from getting caught underfoot or in the cross hairs of a crossbow, before he too departs. The old Wolf has to steady himself against the wall more than once, but his weakness does not ease anything of the terrible ache that seizes his heart.

He knows that if he does not find the cat first, there may not be a cat left for him to defend.

But, Melitele above, he has to try.

Jaskier doesn’t know how he is supposed to keep track of a giant cat in the labyrinthine keep, especially without the blessing of Witcher mutagens, but in the end, he follows the shouts and the wounded lowing of the poor beast as quickly as he can. The Witchers have a head start on him, but he has a sinking feeling he will need the book and the notice to buy back whatever time he can, to keep her alive. He doesn't have the benefit of years of knowledge, the intimate sort of knowledge of every nook and cranny, which hall turned where, but he imagines he can't be too far from developing that sixth sense when he distinctly hears the beast's pitiful cries much closer than before.

Even before he starts running, he knows he’s running out of time. Distantly he can hear the roars that bounce off the stone walls. Sometimes he can see the flashes of light, red-orange fire against blue.

She nearly collides into him when he stumbles out of the narrow hallway, and her blue and green eyes are filled with such a helpless agony that it's all he can do to open his arms and invite her close. All at once her weight drags him down, but just as before, she curls her arms around him to cushion his head. It's not quite a comfortable embrace, but at least he doesn't have to worry about fighting yet another headache. His last one has only just begun to clear up. He strokes a hand over the curve of her cheekbone. The black patch over her eye ruins the otherwise fearsome image she has going for her, more so than all the injuries that litter her form. He tries not to focus on them or the creeping warmth of the blood soaking into the leg of his trousers.

She's still supernaturally warm when he runs his hands over the top of her massive head. He's managed to shift them around so her head is pillowed atop his thighs, one hand petting her between her ears as she fights to breathe. Her eyes slid open and shut periodically as she shifts, paws curling tight against the pain, but he stays with her, humming a lullaby so softly he hopes that only she can hear it.

He only notices they are no longer alone in the hallway when Cricket lets out a low cry, a plea, and he glances up to find Eskel a few feet away. Though his sword is at the ready at his side, his expression has never been so empty. Jaskier looks down at the cat and the way her muscles tense with pain, how she still tries to scoot away, and he makes his decision then and there.

He lowers her head back onto the stone carefully, urging her to stay quiet and goes to meet the Witcher with trembling hands and a rapidly beating heart.

"Eskel, Eskel, please, just, come on, I need you to think rationally, alright?" Jaskier begs. He pushes against the Witcher's chest, but nothing seems to slow him down. At least Eskel hasn't tossed him to the side yet so that has to count for something. He throws a glance over his shoulder at the cat.

Still in her larger form, her hide is peppered with broken crossbow bolts that stain her white coat with streaks of pink and scarlet. The fire around her tail tip has shrunk down to a soft, barely there glow. Her breathing is labored and weak, it sounds awful to Jaskier who has had the great misfortune of being present to hear more than one death rattle. It's not his fault he's so beloved by the elderly, nor is it his fault he's sucker enough to indulge an old widow's last wish. It doesn't sound good, but even so, she still struggles to lift her upper body from where she'd collapsed against the stone. She grunts when her arms collapse underneath her, and, eyes screwed tightly shut,, her whole body shakes from the pain that courses through her from the sudden movement.

"Eskel, please."

"What, Jaskier? She attacked Vesemir too. I'm the one who brought her here, I have to be the one to end it." He shuts his eyes for a moment and breathes in deep. His eyes are cold when they reopen, and Jaskier shrinks back a step before forcing himself to plant his feet. The Witcher hears something in the distance though because while he doesn’t move his eyes from the pair in front of him, he shouts, “Geralt, she’s here. And so is your bard.”

Geralt! Oh, Geralt! He’ll listen. He has to, Jaskeir has to believe it. He’d always put his faith in Eskel as the most level-headed, but, Melitele save him, he has to put his trust in Geralt now.

As soon as the white-haired Witcher slides to a stop beside his brother, the two of them look distressingly more menacing side by side, they practically fill the hallway with their impressive bulk. Now is not the time however. With both hands still raised, he is alarmingly weaponless, Jaskier stares at his Witcher and hopes to every god above that he can still be swayed with reason.

“Geralt, dear heart, you mustn’t hurt her. You always said you don’t kill sentient creatures, not when they didn’t deserve it, didn’t harm anyone,” Jaskier pleads.

The Witcher grunts but doesn’t refute the point.

Encouraged by the silence, Jaskier continues, willing his voice to calm, though neither sword has lowered an inch, neither pair of golden eyes has left their mark, “She hasn’t hurt anyone. I mean, I know you said she attacked Vesemir, but ask yourself. What did she  _ do _ ? She just put him to sleep for a second. She was  _ scared _ , Geralt, and I know why.”

Geralt grunts again and this time Jaskier thinks it’s his “continue on” grunt. He fumbles to kneel down beside Cricket’s head again, wipes away the blood that leaks from the corner of her mouth, but it just makes things look worse.

“I’ve known for a long time, actually, I just, I hope you can forgive us both. She never wanted me to have to lie to you," he tells the Witcher earnestly, then he leans down to whisper into the cat's ear. "Dear heart, I think it’s time you showed them."

You could hear a pin drop by the time Cricket finishes changing. She lies limp across Jaskier’s lap. It makes a strange sight, a woman dressed in lavender that’s deepening into more of a violet shade by the second as the fabric of her clothes soak up her own blood. The crossbow bolts appear sinister and dramatic from where they pierce her body, large enough against her small frame that it’s clear they were meant for monsters, not men. More blood leaks out around the shafts with every pained breath. He tries not to think of how he might have sped things along, asking her to change shape. Her larger form has a much larger blood volume than this one, and it’s not as though the blood she’s already lost miraculously returned to her. Her hand scrabbles against the stone and quickly, he reaches for it, threading their fingers together and squeezing. Her lips move but no sound comes out beyond a whistling sort of wheeze and a thin stream of blood.

“Darling, darling, don’t speak, it’ll be alright, I won’t let them hurt you,” he promises. It’s difficult with only one hand, but Jaskier pulls the book from the back pocket of his trousers and throws it to the floor halfway between him and the Witchers. He cringes at the rough treatment he’d just subjected it to, but there was nothing to be done about that now. “There’s a contract in the back you need to see.”

Geralt picks it up and, returning his sword to its sheath, carefully unfolds the notice. “If she’s the one responsible for this, then we have no choice, Jaskier.”

“She was framed, Geralt. She can tell you the full story herself, but she’ll die before she gets the chance if you two don’t get your heads out of your asses and help me. Just believe me that she was framed. Part of what she is means that she can’t kill like that, indiscriminately. It’ll take too long to explain. Please, Geralt, Eskel, you have to believe me.” His voice trembles, and he squeezes the hand in his, tries not to think about how cold it is. “Believe me or give her a good death. She was your friend once. You owe her that much.”

Time seems to freeze for a moment, and Jaskier nearly weeps that Eskel can’t even let her pass in peace.

Then finally, finally Eskel sheaths his sword and scoops Cricket into his arms. He doesn’t wait for Jaskier to speak before he moves back down the corridor.

Jaskier shares a look with Geralt, who simply shakes his head and follows his brother.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Ch1 I can honestly say I didn't see myself going in this direction
> 
> I hope i didn't disappoint anyone but am aware I probably did.
> 
> Anyway...it still gets worse before it gets better from here.
> 
> Thank you for still being here ❤😽


	11. CH9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which she wakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was waiting for it to reach 2000 hits to post because it was close enough already and I had this one mostly ready to go.
> 
> And we did it! So here we go! Two chapters in two days!

They end up in one of the rooms that serves as a makeshift infirmary. A thin layer of dust lies over most things. It is a rare thing for a Witcher to be so injured that they need anything more than the simple sewing kit they keep in the training room, after all. But the Witchers move through the room like a well-oiled machine, and Jaskier hates to think how many times they must have been in here, treating the wounds of boys too young to be torn away from all hope of a normal life, tending to the injuries of Witchers barely started on the Path.

There are no chains for them to keep her secure should she wake, but Eskel rests his silver sword over her chest and she does not move. It worries Jaskier that she lies so still, her face devoid of color save for the splashes of red from the blood smeared beneath her lips, the dark bruising of too many sleepless nights under her eyes. Between the two Witchers, they move with clinical efficiency, removing the broken shafts of the crossbow bolts, stitching up what they could, packing and dressing what they couldn’t. Neither one blinks when they have to cut away her dress to get to the worst of the wounds though Jaskier looks away.

When they’re done and step away from the table in the center of the room, they appear so much older, more tired. Jaskier glances back at Cricket to find she’s been redressed into a simple tunic the color of mud. Being much shorter than the Witchers, it goes down to her mid-thigh. It isn't much, and it probably isn't nearly warm enough. Jaskier hopes she's still retained some of her ability to regulate her body heat despite her weakened state. She still looks pale but one of them has wiped away most of the blood. Some of her bandages have already started to stain pink again, but the crisis has been averted at least.

Then Eskel takes away the sword and returns it to its sheath on his back. He looks down at the woman on the table with an expression that Jaskier both fears and aches to name. He can’t speak to Eskel’s feelings, but he’s well aware of Cricket’s. He knows what it’s like to devote yourself to someone without expecting anything back. He holds his breath, but the Witcher doesn’t speak, doesn’t reach out to touch her, to tuck away a stray lock of hair. He only slides his hands under her shoulders and her knees to cradle her against his chest, stepping back out of the room.

She looks so much smaller in his arms and smaller still when he finally sets her down onto the slab of stone in the corner of the cell. Eskel’s dragged them all down into the basement, to the rooms Geralt won’t talk about. It’s alarmingly cold, and Jaskier wishes they would give her some sort of bedding, straw, a moth-eaten blanket, anything to arm her against the cold this deep into the mountains. But Eskel does nothing of the sort. He merely loops chains of silver and iron around her wrists, attaching them to the hoops anchored into the walls. It’s just for show, Jaskier thinks to himself. Cricket won’t fight, not anymore.

He tries to stay behind, but Geralt forces him to move away from the cell. He has a point, it is beyond cold, and his clothes are ruined with Cricket’s blood. Shivering, he lets himself be led away with a silent promise that he’ll bring her a blanket the next time he visits.

“How long have you known?”

The question catches Jaskier off guard. As does the realization that they’ve made it to the library. Even Lambert and Vesemir are there, and he swallows hard. They don’t look very happy. He glances over to Eskel, who seems like a shell of himself. Seated in the chair closest to the fire, he looks very much like he’s about to fling himself into the flames. Jaskier’s nearly at that point himself. Anything to get away from the stare Lambert levels at him.

“The night she burned Eskel’s arm,” Jaskier admits, turning his gaze down to the floor. He doesn’t want to meet Geralt’s eyes. “I found her brewing the potions.”

“I knew you couldn’t have made all those by yourself,” Lambert snorts.

Geralt growls at his brother, just shy of baring his teeth. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

Jaskier’s mouth twists. “Are you really asking me that right now? You nearly killed her. I have never been afraid of you, but Cricket? She was _terrified_. And apparently with good reason.”

Vesemir scoffs, glaring at the bard. “You’re too soft, bard. You forget the world is far more dark and more deadly than your little songs and stories. She’s dangerous and a monster.”

“She isn’t though. She’s not a monster, not any more than any of you,” Jaskier spits back then turns back to Geralt. “She didn’t want me to lie to you so there were some things that she couldn’t explain, but the basic gist as I understand it is that she is a guardian animal. She chooses who she devotes herself to, and she _chose_ Eskel. She _can’t_ hurt him or anyone he calls family.”

“Then how do you explain what happened in the training room? Or is breaking an arm no longer considered hurting someone?”

“Some monsters are resistant to Axii. You have _multiple_ books in the library purely devoted to adverse reactions in certain monsters. Don't act as though it's something wholly unheard of. She wasn’t in control of herself, yet you insist on blaming her for something that wasn’t her fault. Up until Eskel cast Axii, she had been holding herself in check. That’s the only reason things went tits up.”

“You can’t possibly know that.”

Jaskier’s glower could put a manticore to shame. “I can. Unlike you, Geralt, I actually use my words. I’ve spoken with her more than once.”

Lambert’s head lifts from where he’d been resting his chin against his chest, and his arms fall away to his side as he stands. “She’s awake.”

It’s too soon. He's good, excellent, unparalleled with words, but he needs more time than this to sway the hearts of Witchers. It had taken him weeks to perfect _Toss a Coin_ and longer still for it to catch like wildfire among the masses and sway popular opinion. But Witchers were a far cry from simple village folk. Cricket will need more than a song to come back into their good graces.

The Witchers head down the steps, the bard following closely at their heels. Even if no one else will listen to reason just yet, he’s determined to speak over them until they do.

His breath catches in his throat at the sight of her, and a shiver races up his spine. She looks frail, her knees drawn up to her chest, her arms curled around them with her face pressed against her thighs. The tunic really is far too short in her current position but loose enough she’s managed to pull it over her knees to preserve her modesty. Her head is turned away from the doors, and Jaskier’s heart breaks at the sound of the hitch in her breathing. He coughs quietly into his fist to get her attention and is wholly unprepared when he succeeds.

For someone who spends most of her time in the form of a cat and a fair portion of it as a massive lioness, she appears so small and so broken in this very human form. Her eyes are puffy and rimmed with red, her lower lip has been bitten so hard, she bleeds, and her nose has been rubbed raw from crying.

Behind him, Lambert scoffs, calls it a trick, but Jaskier doesn’t pay him any mind. He pushes his way past them all, yanks open the door, and gathers her up in his arms. Geralt never has a chance to reel him back by the time Jaskier forces his way to her side. Instantly she loops her arms around him and buries her face against his chest. She does not cry, only because, he fears, she’s run out of tears. Dehydrated likely. He wants to leave to fetch water for her, but he hates the thought of leaving her to the mercy of wolves.

“Hey, how are you feeling?” he says as gently as he can insead, smoothing her hair behind her head. The yellow tie is still there, but her brown locks are a tangled mess. He does his best to loosen the worst of them with his fingers, but the strands fight him where they are tacky with old blood. Abandoning the effort, he settles for letting her rest with her head pillowed on his lap, his left hand in hers. 

“Like I’ve been trampled by a herd of goats,” Cricket groans. “If someone could douse the lights please, I’ll keep the place warm. Sorry, Jaskier, you’re the only one who can’t see in the dark.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll stay right here,” he says and runs his hand up and down her back. He has no idea which of them snuffs the torches lining the walls, but the room is plunged into darkness and he holds on more tightly to her hand. It takes a moment, but Jaskier shivers at the warmth that seems to leech out of her. He can hear her breathing go more ragged from the effort, but he knows the calming effect that it has on the Witchers. He doesn’t doubt for one moment that she knows it too. It’s a calculated risk, how long she’ll be able to maintain it as weak as she is, especially if she has to fight through whatever power the chains of iron and silver hold over her.

“How did you hide from us for so long?” Eskel asks, genuinely curious.

“Didn’t,” she rasps. She pulls away from Jaskier but keeps her shoulder pressed against his side. Another cough wracks her already weak body, has her curling herself in half to rest her head between her knees. When she sits back again, he doesn't need to be a Witcher to hear the stuttering of her breath as she fights back tears.

Jaskier cuts in so she can preserve her voice, “She turned into you. Or, well, all of you.”

Lambert slams his fist into the wall, grunting something Jaskier doesn’t doubt is a hateful sentiment against Dopplers.

“The medallions should have identified a Doppler,” Eskel remarks, but Cricket shakes her head where she leans against his shoulder.

“Not a Doppler,” she coughs again, a sob escapes her, and Jaskier holds her close, brushes her hair out of her face. The whole time his heart breaks for her.

It’s good that it’s dark. He hates the thought of seeing the exhaustion that so clearly pulls down on her already small frame. He hates that he can imagine the tears running down her cheeks, dripping onto the horrible mud colored tunic she wears.

“Can’t your interrogation wait until morning,” Jaskier cuts in before anyone else can open their mouths. Or at least he thinks he cuts in quick enough, but he doesn’t have their superior vision. No matter, no one speaks and he takes full advantage of the silence. “She isn't going anywhere. Set a watch overnight if you don’t trust your wards on the doors or your chains, but can’t you see that she needs rest? She’s in no condition for an inquiry.”

One of the Witchers grunts, and Vesemir snaps, “Fine. Lambert, you’ll stay first. The rest of you, out. And, bard, be wary of advocating for the wrong monster.”

He bites back his retort only because of the gentle hand in his going limp. The warmth draws back from the room immediately and he shivers. Geralt casts Igni and relights the torches around the room. His golden eyes gleam where he stands to the right of Eskel, but the shining orbs are carefully guarded. None of the Witchers say anything as they file back out of the room. Lambert simply kneels on the floor beside the door and places his hands palm up on top of his thighs. He jerks his head at the door, and Jaskier knows when he’s being told explicitly that his time is up.

It takes just a moment to get her resituated on the hard stone of her “bed,” one arm tucked beneath her head to cushion her head, the other resting over her chest. He’ll have to remember to bring down bedding as well as a comb when he next gets a chance to visit, perhaps also a bowl of water to wash out her hair.

“I’ll come back with water for her, then I’ll be out of your hair.”

Lambert grunts but doesn’t instantly shoot him down.

And later, when he returns with his arms heavily laden down with blankets and a pitcher of water dangling precariously from his pinky and ring fingers, Lambert only sighs at the interruption to his meditation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was definitely more of a filler to calm things down after the last one.
> 
> Thank you, all of you for staying here ❤ I keep waffling about the final chapter count, whether it will be 14 or 15, but it won't go past that for sure. 
> 
> We're so close to the end now and I'm so grateful that so many of you have hung on this long and commented and given kudos.
> 
> I hope to give you the ending you all (and Cricket) deserve.


	12. CH10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which we name our demons and revisit old memories

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the comments, kudos, and support 😭 y'all done made me cry 
> 
> Please enjoy the final few chapters!

With their new knowledge thanks to Jaskier’s confession and his admittedly limited insight, some things start to fall into place. Jaskier confirms that she manipulates the temperature around her to escape detection, but he’s rather quick to give them all a tongue lashing for their neglect to provide her with blankets while they keep her in chains. One, she lost a lot of blood, she’s not exactly in peak condition to maintain her own body temperature, and two, they’d clapped her in chains specifically designed to dampen her natural abilities. Lambert tries to protest that she still seems to be somewhat capable of using her gift in spite of them, but the glare that Jaskier shoots back could have cut a dragon down from the sky, it’s so sharp. She does seem a little more comfortable now, buried beneath an honest to god _hoard_ of furs and woolen blankets of every color and every pattern. He doesn’t even know where Jaskier managed to find so many in good enough condition that they can still be used, but here they are.

Once again, Eskel is reminded how little he really knows of her despite having known her the longest. She is, or she should be, frighteningly powerful, and yet here she remains a subdued prisoner, and he her reluctant warden. 

Her scent has always been disturbingly faint at the best of times, it’s how she evaded him for so long out on the Path after all, that when she tweaks the temperature, she becomes practically untraceable even with four Witchers on her tail. The few scent particles she emits disperse far less easily in the cold, and as a cat, she already makes so little noise that together, she is as good as a ghost. As far as survival skills go, he’s glad she might be the only creature alive that can boast of having such an ability. He hates to think of a leshen he can’t track. 

Eskel is fairly certain he’d spoken to Cricket in the keep, back when he’d felt something was off about Geralt and he’s similarly sure it was the real Jaskier that approached him in the stables, but it’s impossible to know for sure. It’s that uncertainty that nags at his mind most often at night. He tries to remember if there were any other times he felt off about his brothers, or Vesemir even, or if he’d fallen for the trick like a child at a puppet show.

The first few times he takes up watch over the sleeping figure in the dungeon cell it’s all he can think about.

How many times before this had she taken another shape? Had she been playing them all for fools the moment she stepped inside the wards? For what purpose did she follow Eskel all this time?

Those are the questions Vesemir wants answered and orders all of them to ask whenever they’re with her. It’s not the restful peace that Jaskier probably wanted for her in the first few days since her capture, but the Old Witcher, not that she answers them. More specifically, not that she answers anyone beyond Jaskier. She tries to speak with Eskel, but he can’t bear it, not yet. Very quickly she picks up on it, and she withdraws into herself. Distantly he knows it’s his fault. Even worse, he knows that she has the answers to the questions he desperately needs to ask, but he doesn’t dare voice them for fear of what she will say.

Soon enough, she becomes a shell of herself. At some point, someone, likely Jaskier, has given her a change of clothes, and someone else, likely Geralt under Jaskier’s insistence, has undone the chains just enough for her to change into them. Gone is the muddy brown, and in its stead, a dark grey sweater that must have been black at one point hangs loosely from her shoulders, partially covering the long trousers held up with a length of rope long enough to peek out from under the hem of her borrowed sweater. Already her collection of blankets makes her appear incredibly small, but the clothes positively dwarf her.

It’s difficult to reconcile this image with the savage feline that had broken and burned his arm nearly a fortnight ago. With the exception of Jaskier, they’re all a little more wary of her.

Finding out what her kind was called had hardly endeared her to them.

 _Ghost cats_ . _Bakeneko._ The word is not from their language, nor any that Jaskier can recall being offered in Oxenfurt, a foreign tongue carried over from somewhere else, somewhere strange.

It isn’t a name she’d thought up herself, but one she’d heard from a passing merchant back in her hometown, where Eskel had picked her up even if he hadn’t realized it yet at the time. She’s never met another one like her, but she still thinks it’s a terrible misnomer. _Ghost cats._ She’s perfectly alive and vulnerable to injury, thank you very much, but as she tells Jaskier, she understands that it came about due to their proclivity for the manipulation of fire. The little balls she can cast from her tail tip are reminiscent of the will of the wisp flames that dance above the marshes, the flashes of light the common folk mistake for ghosts. She doesn’t remember enough of the traveler’s story to fully appreciate how cats were drawn into it, but it’s the only name she can offer them.

Eskel doesn’t mean for things to change between them, not when he can see how it hurts her that he won’t hand her the glass directly, sets it on the floor ahead of her, just at the edge of her reach with the chains still around her wrists, but it’s hard. Because things _have_ changed. Despite all her whispered promises that she never meant for any of this to happen, things have changed.

When she pushes the warmth outwards from her, because she always does when she realizes it’s him, coming in to relieve her last guard, he can’t keep himself from biting out a rough, “Stop.”

He knows it’s instinctual, and some part of him warms even without her influence at the thought before it breaks apart inside of him. To think that she’s so hopeful and yet he can offer her no solace.

The word sounds harsh, alien, coming from him, and he looks away quickly. It’s not fast enough that he can forget the way she shrinks into herself, the horrible, broken expression that takes up residence on her pretty features. But are they even her features or just somebody she used to know? Can she take the form of anyone she sees or is it more nuanced than that? Dopplers tend not to be so limited and rule bound in what forms they steal, but Eskel knows his knowledge of them has no basis now in their knowledge of her. 

She is something else entirely.

“You said you were framed,” Eskel says shortly. His arms cross over his chest, his face inscrutable. “I shouldn’t need to remind you that it’s in your best interest to be truthful.”

“I won’t lie, I could never lie, least of all to you,” she promises, earnestly but quietly. Today she’s curled up on her side underneath a dark brown sheepskin, the hairs long and crimped. The glass of water sits practically empty at the edge of her reach. The top half of her hair is a little mussed from sleep, but it’s been tied back and plaited with her yellow ribbon, courtesy of Jaskier’s last visit.

“Then what happened? What did you _allegedly_ do that required a Witcher’s intervention?” He stresses the word _allegedly_ even if he still fears that the contract in the book will need to be fulfilled sooner rather than later.

“You need to understand that where I lived, the family I lived with, they were always at war with Nilfgaard. They always resisted and fought to maintain their own rule, but they were just one family managing a small handful of local villages. They were a far cry from kings and queens, and they had no army to call to their defense. All they had was me, and for a long time, we were able to thwart their attacks. Only my Master knew that I was more than a simple house cat. His advisors thought he was crazy every time we rode out on _reconnaissance,_ as he called it, in the middle of the night.”

“What was his name?”

“Mikolaj.”

“Can you take his shape?”

She nods, blue eyes regarding him carefully. He hums to himself but gestures for her to continue.

“Yes, so, Mikolaj, with my help, was able to keep them at bay. It was a strenuous time for us both. I have never liked killing, but we couldn’t afford to leave any alive lest they run back to their king with our secret. In the end, it didn’t matter. One day the Nilfgaardians came in numbers so large that I could do nothing. Mikolaj, he told me to go, to take as many of our people from the main palace to safety and protect them, but they already had us surrounded. I should have realized their plan when I found a gap in their perimeter. They never wanted me to stay behind, with Mikolaj. They knew he was a bleeding heart who would die for his people rather than run.

“By the time I broke past the soldiers again, the palace had been set ablaze. The soldiers drove me away and into the woods for days. They found some poor bastard in the nearest village to post the first notice in the market square and hired more to ride out to the neighboring villages with the same notice. They all asked for a Witcher to come at once to vanquish the fire-breathing demon that had laid waste to the entire noble family and their staff. Nilfgaard got the land they wanted and soon they would have my head. Two birds, one stone.”

“Did anyone ever come?”

Cricket curls tighter around herself before tugging the blanket over her head. She rolls so she faces the wall instead of him. In the dim light offered by the torches he can just make out the signs she traces into the stone with her fingertip. Thanks to the chains around her wrists, they don’t mean anything, but she draws out Yrden, then Igni, then Aard, Quen, and Axii.

“There was one.”

“And his name?”

Her hand falls, and though he still struggles to smell even the faintest traces of lilacs, he can detect the brief, almost undetectable spike of sorrow. “I know I knew it once, but he made me forget.”

“But you remember the signs?”

“And the shape of him. He was kind to me. He wasn’t as talkative as you were, but he was kind.”

“What happened to the contract?”

“By the time the Witcher finally came, most of the townspeople had fled, from war and from rumors of a monster, but the ones that were left knew me. They knew the old stories. And the Witcher, he pieced it together himself between the book and his own investigation."

“And he let you live.”

“He did. He told me to keep them safe and then he left and I never saw him or another Witcher again. Not until you came along.” She pauses to roll over, blue eyes finding gold. “Why did you come?”

“I have to go.”

He doesn’t give an excuse. He just unfolds his legs, stands, and steps back through the door. When he returns upstairs to find Geralt and Jaskier seated together in the dining hall, he shrugs off their stares and storms off to his room. He can feel Geralt’s stare as it follows him out. He knows he’s abandoned his post watching over the cat far too early, but he also knows that between the Witcher and the bard, he won’t be sold out to Vesemir for leaving her unattended. He just, he can’t stay down in the dungeons for long, not with that overwhelming sadness that wafts around her like a depressing perfume. He knows he’s to blame for much of it, but he can’t help it. It’s not his fault that she lied to them all, pretending to be less than what she was, what she is.

He feels childish, but most of all he feels unmoored, a ship lost at sea. He feels wholly unprepared for the truth that’s presented itself. If it even is the truth. Cricket could tell him all manner of lies and he would be none the wiser no matter how she swears to tell the truth. 

Shapeshifters complicate things. They take shapes that don’t belong to them. They are always becoming something other than themselves. No record exists in any of their books that remotely resembles the demonic catlike creature that she is. There is no way to corroborate anything she tells them. All they can do is take her word for fact.

If they knew the name of the Witcher who’d come across her before, then perhaps they might be able to find something in the late Witcher’s belongings. It is only a faint hope, a fledgling idea they can’t allow to fly. Cricket claims not to remember the name, but the only way she’ll be able to show them who he was requires the removal of the chains.

And Vesemir knows better than to trust a shapeshifter out of its bonds. Dopplers take on the skills and strengths of the ones they mimic. A Witcher-Doppler is a formidable opponent, and he will not risk allowing her to transform into him and overtake him. But why then had she not seized the opportunity to escape when she’d taken each of their forms? Would the wards have recognized her as a Witcher and let her through? Perhaps they hadn’t and that was why she remained behind, trapped in the keep until the hunt reached its inevitable end. It’s easier to believe that given the choice, she would have run.

There are too many questions, but as Eskel strips down to his underclothes and builds up a fire in the hearth, he resolves to leave them for Vesemir in the morning. Cricket’s determination to only answer to him be damned. 

In the morning, over a quiet breakfast with Lambert downstairs with the cat, Eskel reports what little information he has to their elder. If Vesemir recognizes the Witcher from his story, he makes no outward sign of it, but he doesn’t have a name, or a description, not even a time period. He doesn’t blame the old Witcher for not having an answer right away. If Vesemir believes that she _was_ framed and not responsible for the deaths of the family of nobles, he doesn’t say it aloud.

The ache in Eskel’s chest never fades as a dozen wild thoughts race around in his mind. Witchers don’t involve themselves in the affairs of men, but an idle thought strikes him. If not under their watch, under their protection, who’s to say what would happen to her if she were to have full run of the Continent?

Unleashing a shapeshifter into a war sits even more uneasily. Of course, it’s dependent on someone recognizing the potential of an otherwise unremarkable creature, but while their own records are sparse, Eskel knows the libraries of Ban Ard go far deeper than even he had been allowed to see. The knowledge of the Nilfgaardian Empire is vast, accumulated over years of conquest. It would be foolish not to consider that they might be aware of something like her. No matter which side finds her first, can either one really, truly trust a shapeshifter? Already she claims to have been framed by Nilfgaard for one massacre. It would take little to no effort to frame someone else for her misdeeds.

No, it’s for the best that she remains here in the keep, far from where she might be used for ill.

Vesemir doesn’t so much agree with his assessment as he refuses to think that far ahead. Sometimes the easiest solution is the best one, and the old Witcher apparently means to keep her tethered indefinitely.

For now, the chains stay on, and the Witchers rotate back into their watches. The keep goes quiet, save for the infrequent strumming of a lute, though the songs tend to be slow and sad more often than not. Eskel can’t stomach asking Geralt how the bard is doing, not when he already has a fair idea of the answer he would receive. He knows Jaskier resents them all for their unwillingness to believe him, resents them for their mistreatment of the cat, the woman in the cells. Blames him the most.

It is a good thing that they have passed the longest night of the year already. The daily work takes longer with only three pairs of hands to do it when there should be four, but they make do. Their repairs to the keep have held through the worst of the storms, and now longer days and fairer weather lie ahead. 

Yet when Eskel finds himself dreaming of spring, it’s always tinged with the delicate smell of lilacs.

* * *

They make some progress when Vesemir explains how he used Yrden to trap her before. It won’t be foolproof. She resisted it before to some extent, but he warns them that she’d been caught off guard before; she could resist it completely this time when she knows to expect it. Between the four of them, they create a barrier that divides the small cell in half, and Eskel is, naturally, the one volunteered to remove the chains from her wrists. Even though he is the only one to have been seriously injured by her, there is no mistaking the genuine grief that wracks her features whenever someone brings it up.

Jaskier volunteers initially, of course, despite not having been invited to come down for the interrogation, but Geralt hauls him back by the collar of his shirt. The glare speaks for itself, but the bard huffs and crosses his arm over his chest, muttering something about how all of this is unnecessary. A part of Eskel agrees, but the other part warns him against trusting the unknown creature too much.

Her eyes are locked on his, searching for something as he approaches, and he has to force himself to not be drawn into the blue depths. He’s used to it when people flinch at the slightest movement, he knows the sight he makes between his bulk and his scars, but she only holds her breath when he lifts her wrists, easily undoing the padlock that holds them tight against her skin. They fall away with a dull clatter on top of her makeshift bed, cushioned by the myriad furs. The skin beneath is chafed nearly raw, bright red and swollen, and his fingers linger over the marks a touch too long.

He glances up and blue meets gold. His breath catches in his throat, and the soft scent of lilacs floods his nose even as warmth floods his bones, washing away all his aches and pains. The hand he’d freed first comes up to cover his where it’s still curled around her left hand. He jerks back as if burned as soon as he realizes his lapse, moving backwards until he passes back through the magical barrier. Desperately he ignores the spike in her sorrow at his departure, the sudden chill that eats away at him. It’s as easy to ignore as an ice bath.

“Show me the Witcher,” Vesemir’s gruff voice cuts through the tense quiet.

And she does. It’s not anyone Eskel recognizes, not at first. Dark auburn hair reaches to the man’s chin in the front but is cut shorter in the back. A long, ragged scar stretches from the left side of his jaw all the way up to his hairline. It’s a nasty thing, like something had tried to separate his face from his skull, but he’d healed, hadn’t died from it. Three scars, like claw marks, curve over his right eye and across the bridge of his nose, and Eskel’s suddenly grateful he doesn’t look worse for all he’s suffered. Cricket rises from the bench, and the new Witcher stands four inches taller than Eskel, but his frame is narrower at the waist. His armor is a rich burgundy leather over lighter beige leather pants, tucked into tall dark brown boots. She even has the twin swords on her back, the medallion at her throat. The gold of his eyes is perhaps a shade or two lighter than Eskel’s, but he is unmistakably a Witcher of the Wolf School.

When she finishes changing and steps to the edge of the barrier, Eskel resolutely stands firm. His whole body vibrates with a need to reach out, as if to break the illusion.

The sadness that fills those golden orbs feels foreign. The open emotion seems out of place on the nameless Witcher’s face.

“Feliks,” Vesemir gasps incredulously. “I should have known.”

His voice doesn’t break, but something shifts in the old Witcher.

Eskel meets Geralt’s eyes for a moment before looking back to Cricket/Feliks. “Thank you,” he mutters because he hardly knows what else to say, but the silence is deafening, begs to be broken.

She nods, and at once she seems to shrink. The colors blur, another blink, and she’s back in the form she was in previously, the woman in the lavender gown, although this time her wrists are no longer inflamed.

“Your wrists, they’re healed?” he murmurs more to himself, but she catches the words anyway.

She holds her arms loosely out to her sides, gesturing to her dress with a sad sort of smile. “These shapes are just memories, they can’t be injured, not truly, but underneath, my true form still carries the wounds.”

No one speaks for several long moments. Then Vesemir turns on his heel and makes for the door. He stops just shy of stepping out of view. His voice is quiet but no one questions the command behind his words. “Replace the chains. Work out the watch amongst yourselves.”

It’s unusual, but they let him leave, a nearly silent scuff of boots against the stone steps until he’s too far away for their ears to follow. Cricket sighs just to break the tension then returns to her little bench, clicking locks of the chains back around her wrists. Immediately, the smell of lilacs fades again, along with the steady warmth that she’d been radiating; he hadn’t realized it until the last thread of heat melted away. Without waiting for anyone else to speak, she pulls the furs over herself and curls up. It’s as clear a dismissal as they can hope to get.

“I’ll stay first,” Eskel says after a long pause. Her heart rate ticks up for a fraction of a second, but otherwise she doesn’t twitch a muscle in recognition of the words.

“I’ll relieve you in a bit, hate wakin’ up early,” Lambert grunts, then swiftly departs from the room.

Geralt grunts and drags Jaskier back out before the bard can argue the pros of being allowed to stay.

It seems Eskel isn’t the only one listening for the silence to fall once more. As soon as Geralt and Jaskier pass out of range, Cricket rolls over onto her other side, wide blue eyes watching him carefully. The wards are still up, but eventually they will fall. For now, they cast a pale purple light against the walls. Whatever hope she has to be able to explain herself, to put herself back in his good graces, shrivels up and dies in the tense silence that hangs between them. She rolls back over and traces imaginary patterns against the wall.

Upstairs, Lambert follows Vesemir into the library, watching from the doorway as the older Witcher pours out a tall glass of White Gull. He barely even sets the bottle back onto the table before gulping down half the glass and refilling it. Lambert closes the distance between them and holds out his hand for the bottle, hoping he won’t have to fight his old fencing instructor for it, but he shouldn’t let the man drink himself to death, not this early. Eventually, Vesemir releases his grip on the neck of the bottle, and Lambert pours himself a drink, though he nurses it much more slowly. It burns down his throat.

"Who was the other Witcher?”

"A friend, died before your time," Vesemir mumbles, taking another long gulp. His eyes slide shut as he sinks into his customary armchair. His chest heaves with several deep breaths and he rubs his temple against the beginnings of a headache. Witchers can’t cry, but fuck if they can’t come close.

“How did he die?”

Vesemir shrugs behind another sip. “As most Witchers do, made a mistake during a hunt. The villagers who hired him were the ones who found him, too late to save him, but they granted him a good death and they sent his things back. It’s rare that humans don’t hold onto Witcher swords after their death, but that was who he was, the kind of kindness he inspired. He wanted to leave more good in the world than he found.”

“Poetic,” Lambert huffs.

The wolves don’t expect it, but they sit, quiet and still as statues, when the Old Wolf continues.

"He was soft, annoyingly soft. Our instructors could never convince him to toughen up. When he came back from his first year on the Path, he had a few more scars than when he left, not all of them the sort you get from battling monsters with claws and teeth, but he still carried himself with such boundless optimism. He preferred payment in deeds and trinkets rather than coin and hunting the woods for food over taking a meal at an inn. It shouldn't surprise me that he would endear himself to our...friend, nor that she would endear herself to him."

Jaskier picks up on the thread of _something_ in the Witcher’s voice, shifts forward a bit in his seat, leaning his elbows on his thighs. Vesemir’s golden eyes lock onto his, but his voice remains steady, “But it does?”

“It does.” He nods, suddenly appearing far older. He swirls the last few drops around in the base of his glass and sighs again. “We were friends, close as brothers, I thought we were, but he never spoke a word about what he’d found. He kept her secret, even from me.”

“Was he a good judge of character then?” Jaskier presses. Geralt kicks his shin, but the words already hang heavy in the air. He can’t take them back if he wishes to, which he most definitely does not. “He let her live for a reason.”

But Vesemir doesn’t answer.

Jaskier wants to believe that the silence speaks volumes. No one likes to admit it when they’re wrong, but the bard knows better than to call him out for it now. Not now that the memory has soured.

What’s the old saying?

Let sleeping wolves lie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously thank you. I hope to deliver an ending everyone deserves, characters and readers before Jan 1st.
> 
> It'll be tough because I want to hike to see the first sunrise of the new year so I can't sleep super late lol


	13. CH11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which a heart breaks and choices need to be made

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle up, kids. I've never written anything before that I felt really needed warnings, but I think this time it kinda does. It's a hard one.
> 
> Content warning:  
> The end is VERY rough emotionally.  
> *HINTED ANIMAL DEATH* Be prepared.  
> *Hinted suicidal ideation*

The boots that scuff the stone on their way down the narrow staircase are heavy, the sound loud, coarse, and deliberate, there can be no mistaking who is coming her way. It’s not who she’d hoped, but after a while, when it had become clear that she couldn’t (or simply wouldn’t) escape, they stopped coming in for regular watches. She misses it, the company, even if it rarely takes the shape of the one person she hopes for. They bring water. They bring food. But they do not linger.

Jaskier comes as often as he is able, but between the new sets of chores that have been delegated to him, he becomes frighteningly busy rather quickly. The frown on his face when he tells her this suggests there is, in fact, genuine work to be done to ready the Wichers to depart in the spring, but it still hurts.

There is no point in trying to deny that his absence bothers her. Without him, there is no one who looks at her so openly, so unguarded. Her Witchers, _the_ Witchers, for they aren’t hers anymore, all look at her with, if not fear, distrust, wariness, and they carry so much tension in their shoulders, all she wants to do is press herself against each of them, to hold them close, and take away their hurts. It is a terrible thing to have one’s help so unwanted. This horribly long life of hers had only ever had a singular purpose, to help and to heal, and to be barred from that, it’s excruciating.

She feels cold in a way that she’s not certain she’s meant to.

She is, after all, a composite of dead things. A collection of ghosts. A walking memory. The face she wears is not the same she was born with. 

But still she aches. Still she bleeds.

Beneath Roksana’s sweet face, she is still a cat licking her wounds. 

She forces herself to sit up, stretches herself out. The cold stone is unforgiving even after all of Jaskier’s attempts to make her more comfortable. She is still trapped in a cold cell deep inside the mountain. As long as the chains are looped around her wrists, she can do little to regulate her own body heat above what is necessary. She’s never been one for flaunting her power. It’s how she escaped notice for so many years, how she hadn’t realized even the extent of her abilities for more than a decade after she should have died. She makes herself small because that’s the only way things like her get to survive.

Now though, she is keenly aware of the decline in her condition, going from a constant pleasant heat to this bone deep cold. Her wounds have healed outwardly, but her ribs still ache, her lungs throb, and her breath rattles in her throat whenever she inhales too sharply, twists too quickly. She can maintain some semblance of warmth if she concentrates, but it’s a fleeting thing, and taxing to boot, something she saves for the few times Jaskier can slip down to visit rather than using the energy on herself.

"Hello, Lambert,” she greets him as pleasantly as she can when he rounds the corner and comes into the room.

He grunts, "Fuck off, cat,” and settles against the wall. His eyes are like twin fires. His jaw is clenched where he chews the inside of his cheek.

"I am entirely at your mercy, dear Witcher,” she reminds him, lifting one chained wrist so that the metal glints in the torchlight. She doesn’t understand why he’s come, but her time is waning and much as she hopes Eskel will return, there is something to be said about telling a story regardless of one’s current audience. Yes. If he asks, then she will answer. Better that it was Jaskier, but hers is a story that should be told. She has loved too many people to let their stories pass with her.

"What was the con? Were we just a game for you? Was Eskel just a mark?"

"There is no game, Lambert, please. I was born out of love, I was born to give that love back tenfold. I have only ever wanted to help Eskel, to protect his loved ones."

He huffs. "And lied to him, to all of us. You're a _shapeshifter_. All you do is lie."

The fire sures in her chest, and she fights to tamp it down, but she’s certain steam escapes her nostrils. When she reopens her eyes, Lambert’s already on his feet, sword at the ready. She shrinks back into her pile of furs with a weak glare. “I. Can’t. Lie. Not to Eskel. It’s part of the bond magic, when I choose someone to follow. I may not have shown him this part of me, but I _never_ lied.”

He doesn’t speak for several minutes, but neither of them can sleep. Cricket tosses and turns in her bundle of furs, it’s difficult to get truly warm, and there he is, every time she glances his way, meditating, though his shoulders are still nearly level with his ears. He doesn’t seem to be all that deep into it though, not like the times she’d seen Eskel do it. His jaw is still tight, the line between his brows still deep. So full of anger. She almost pities him, but pity is not what men like him want, nor is it what they need. His sort needs acceptance and gentleness in the face of that anger, an immovable rock impervious against the roaring of that bitter tide.

Golden eyes snap open, and she shivers but doesn’t look away.

“Is this even your real form? Whose shape are you taking now?”

For once, venom doesn’t lace his words, and so she answers him honestly, tells him about her dear Roksanna, the first human who ever showed her kindness. She weaves him the story about how she was found as a kitten and raised up alongside the little girl, thick as thieves, how she was named.

“My name was Kasia, _is_ Kasia. They always give me names when I come to them, but Kasia was my first and my true name,” she says wistfully. Lambert still calls her _cat_ , but there is the barest flicker of humor in his eyes before he blinks and it’s gone.

He doesn’t stop her when she goes on to explain how she lived to see her Roksanna die in labor, giving birth to her second son, how she came to be the child’s guardian in the absence of a mother. It was a simple thing, moving down the line of successors, staying in the family, protecting them even if they didn’t understand how a cat could live so long. So it was that she became a part of their history, painted into the pages of their family tree. So it would have been until Nilfgaard destroyed everything she’d come to know. It ended with Mikolaj. Set adrift, she wandered, but always she was drawn back to her little village, the innocent townsfolk who stayed behind to eke out a living in the fields.

And then the Witcher came.

“What happened exactly? Did he know you were a shapeshifter?”

“He followed me into the woods and told me that he wouldn’t harm me if I would talk to him for a while. There was just this, this _air_ about him, I knew I could trust him to keep his word. He asked me what I wanted, and I told him the truth, that I was looking for someone I could protect, someone that I wouldn’t lose for a long time. I thought a Witcher would be perfect, but he didn’t want me to bind myself to him. I could respect that. He said the village still needed me for a while yet, but there would be other Witchers more deserving of such a gift if that's what I had set my heart on. He asked me to wait for them.”

“Did he give you a name?” Lambert leans his head back against the wall and lets his eyes fall shut.

“No name, but he said I might have to wait a while. I ended up waiting for nearly half a century for Eskel to come along, and even then I waited, followed him around town to get a measure of his heart.”

“What did he do to convince you he was the right Witcher?”

She laughs, but it is a hollow thing. If she had any tears left, she would have cried. Her head tips back against the stone, and blue eyes meet gold. He’s angry, hurting, and suspicious, but there is an honest curiosity beneath the rage, a certain kind of hopeful curiosity. She knows the effect she has on people. She’s seen the way the angriest of men turn into the meekest of mice when she can push a little bit of her warmth their way. They needed a softer touch than what life had given them. They just need to be reminded what it feels like to be loved. He wants to believe her, but knowing that and knowing what to say are two very different things.

Before all this, she would have said that she knew Eskel rather well, but now, she laughs in the quiet of her mind, now she’s not so sure. And she knows the other Witchers even less. She doesn’t know what words she can say that will convince them that she has only ever wanted to help.

“It was more like what didn’t he do to convince me otherwise. Village life is full of small mishaps, little chores that need doing. From reloading a merchant’s cart in the rain to helping deliver a goat in the middle of the market square to putting in a new fence for the farmer down the road, he helped all of them and never took anyone’s coin. I thought to myself, yes, this was a heart that needed protecting.”

When the first droplet strikes the back of her hand, it catches her entirely by surprise. Hurriedly she wipes the remaining moisture from her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. Lambert doesn’t even blink.

“Why him though? I mean, why a Witcher?”

“Do you know, Witcher, how it feels to lose the ones you love, time and time again?”

“No one loves a Witcher,” Lambert sneers back and looks away.

“You know that’s not true, you can smell it on Jaskier even under all his perfumes,” she snorts, but it won’t do to think poorly of her only friend in the keep. “Besides, whether or not you believe in it, I’m sure you’ve lost someone close to you. Vesemir told me how you were the only one of your peers to survive the Trials. You’re no stranger to loss. Just as your mutations grant you incredibly long life, whatever magic gave rise to me also keeps me tethered to this world. Everyone I’ve attached myself to in the past has left me, by sickness or by war or by any number of things, but I always lose them in the end. Do you understand now why I might have sought out a Witcher to whom I could bind myself?”

“It’s a suicide mission. You want to die,” he spits.

It pulls at her heart that he could think so little of her.

“No, no, Lambert,” she won’t call him sweetheart, but she does wish she could gather him up into her arms and smooth out the line between his brows, take away a little of the pain, “I did not seek out a Witcher as a means to a finite end, but rather an end to the cycle of loss. Your kind is long-lived but not invincible, but if I could protect even one of you, I might never have to know that loss again. I have lived far too long to keep losing the ones closest to me. If you must hate me for something, Lambert, then hate me for being selfish. My whole life has been given in the service of other people, this was the first choice I made for myself.”

Something shifts in Lambert’s eyes, and his shoulders droop as though a weight has been lifted. She desperately wants to hope that he believes her, will speak well of her when he returns to the others upstairs, but such hopes are a dangerous thing in dark places.

Just as she expects, Lambert pushes himself up off the floor, grabs the empty glass, and departs without another word. Instantly, the room feels colder with the loss, and she curls into herself, drawing the furs tight around her. Just another night in Kaer Morhen.

Geralt comes down a while later with a full pitcher and a small plate of bread and cheese. He doesn’t stay longer than it takes to deliver everything, but the look on his face is strange, caught somewhere between confusion and constipation. Then he too leaves without speaking a word. It’s not much of a meal, but it’s enough to settle her stomach and keep her occupied until she’s tired enough to try sleeping again. Wherever he is, she just hopes that Eskel comes to visit soon. There are just some things that are better said face to face.

* * *

She gets her wish what feels like several days later when Eskel climbs down the steps, the whole entourage at his back. Vesemir brings up the rear with his arms folded across his chest. The old Witcher pointedly avoids making eye contact, and that’s new. Jaskier walks side by side with Geralt but yields to let the Witcher step through the doorway first, but unlike the last time, no attempt of Geralt’s can keep the bard from joining Cricket on her little bench and pulling her into a hug that she returns just as fiercely. It’s been far too long since the last time she had felt so warm. Reluctantly, she peels herself away, but Jaskier keeps one arm wrapped firmly around her shoulders and one hand intertwined with hers. He offers her a soft smile that has her eyes filling with tears, but she won’t let them fall, not now. She sniffles and squeezes his hand, hoping that he knows just how much she appreciates him.

Her eyes slide over to Geralt, then to Lambert. None of them have come down with their swords. Of course, there’s always the risk that they’ve brought knives instead, hidden about their persons, but there’s a strange tension in the air, something in the way the white-haired Witcher’s gaze flits between Eskel and her, that makes her heart beat just a little bit faster. It doesn’t feel as though it’s directed at her.

When she locks eyes with Eskel, her ribs ache from the gasp that escapes her. He looks so much worse now compared to the last time she’d seen him.

It feels like forever and a day ago that she’d taken the first Witcher’s shape, Feliks, Vesemir had called him, and she remembers what it felt like, to see him as someone worth tying herself to. The memories come back of the little time she’d spent with him, the gentle manner in which he conducted his investigations, the kindness he’d displayed when he extended an olive branch and invited her to show herself with no threat of coming to harm. He had been the walking definition of _gentle giant_ , a personification of kindness.

She would have bound herself to him if he’d only given her the chance, but he declined as soon as she offered. And now she has the distinct understanding that he’d died. Some part of her still believes she could have prevented it, but there’s another part that feels like this was Destiny’s plan all along, to wait until the timing was right, to put Eskel in her path in his stead. They are so alike that she wants to ask if they knew each other, if the elder had had a hand in his training, but she hesitates, aware that she is already walking on eggshells around them. Regardless, somehow she botched Destiny’s plan along the way. A tear slips past and falls on her hand still wrapped up in Jaskier’s, and clumsily, she wipes her eyes with the edge of her sleeve. 

“Go on, ask her what you came down here for.” Jaskier’s voice is almost too loud after not hearing it in so long, seated so closely beside her.

“What’s it like, the bond magic, when you picked me? How does it work?” Eskel cuts to the chase rather quickly. She imagines that they must have been discussing the merits of having this conversation for some time upstairs.

She has to swallow several times around the lump that rises up in her throat, and Jaskier rubs her arm comfortingly. “I do this thing, like stamping a mark onto the people I decide I want to protect, and it makes a sort of tether between us.”

Eskel’s hand balls into a fist at his side, and his voice is rough when he asks, “Where?”

“Over your heart,” she answers, head ducked down. “Normally I aim for the center of the chest, but I had to avoid your medallion so…”

“How poetic,” Jaskier hums from above her and flashes a smile towards the cat, who has achieved a spectacular shade of red.

"What does it do?" Eskel pushes on regardless.

"Nothing for you. For me, I can track you anywhere, I can feel it when you're hurting, whether you're sick or injured. That's about as deep as it goes. The whole purpose of my being is to protect.”

“Was it just me or did you bond with the others?”

She can feel the blush rise in her cheeks as she admits in a meek voice, “Just you. I would still protect any of them, but you’re the one I’m bound to. You’re the only one I— Please, Eskel, if you want to kill me for this, then do it. I won’t fight it, not if it’s you.”

Her voice shakes and she can feel Jaskier’s grip tightening around her, but she shrugs him off to stand before Eskel. He’s only a few feet away, just within arm’s reach if she stretches to the end of the chain. She might be able to brush her fingertips against his sleeve, but she simply stands there, forcing herself not to tremble under the weight of his gaze. There is no hate, no rage in those golden pools, only a stoic emptiness that frightens her. Yet she does not dare to move away.

“Kill me if you truly think that I am a monster, but let this end. If you ask me to go, then I will and you’ll never see me again, but please, Eskel, _let this end_.”

The whole time her heart is breaking, he remains impassive, and the tears flow continuously like a river overflowing its banks, she can’t help them. Her hands clench the lavender of her dress, wrinkling the delicate fabric until a hand comes over hers, fingertips calloused by years of picking at a lute, offering her a warm presence at her back. She steps back into him, but her eyes remain on the Witcher.

“Leave us,” Eskel commands the room, but his eyes are fixed on Cricket’s.

It takes considerable effort to stay still until Cricket finishes speaking. He’d come down with a singular purpose in mind, and no matter Jaskier’s conviction that he not go through with it, he has to know. He can’t allow himself to be swayed from his path. Only her promise that she wouldn’t fight him changes things a little. He hadn’t wanted an audience anyway, but he had been afraid of her lashing out against him once he removed her chains. It’s better that they do this alone.

Jaskier watches Geralt file out of the room behind Vesemir and Lambert with a guarded expression and tightens his hand around Cricket’s one last time before he pulls away. He leaves her with a gentle kiss on the back of her hand.

“You don’t have to do this,” Jaskier growls as he steps up to the Witcher. His body is utterly still, but there’s an undercurrent of rage.

“I do,” Eskel bites back, and Cricket jumps up from her bench, but stupidly, they both stand just out of reach. Her movement brings the attention of both men back to her, and Eskel seizes the opportunity to gather the front of Jaskier’s doublet in his fist and forcibly drag him towards the doorway. “You don’t understand, bard. I _have_ to.”

Eskel can still feel the heat of his glare long after Jaskier finally disappears back through the door, but the Witcher waits for his steps to fade away before he releases the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

It’s a cue that she picks up on immediately to beg in a pitiably watery voice, “Eskel, please what would it take to convince you to trust me, to believe that I mean you no harm? Tell me and I will do it.”

He can’t look her in the eye when he speaks. He can’t so he doesn’t. “Dissolve the bond.”

She whimpers, shuffling several steps back, her head shaking the whole time in disbelief. “You can’t ask me to do that. Please don’t.”

“Why, is it not in your power?” He asks. He doesn’t mean for the words to sound so sharp, so accusing, but here they are, and Cricket falls back onto the stone slab of her bed, wringing her hands together in her lap. 

“No, it is. It’s just, it will be the first time I’ve taken it back. I don’t know what it will do to you.” She inhales sharply, scrubs away a tear with the heel of her hand. “Or to me.”

“Do it,” he insists and steps forward into her space, ignoring the way that she flinches away from him when he reaches for her wrists. She never used to flinch as a cat, but things have changed since then. Since they learned the truth. She rubs the bruised skin with a dejected look in her eyes that he breaks as quickly as he realizes he’s been caught watching. 

“Please, Eskel. Didn’t Lambert tell you what I told him? I chose you because you were good, not just as a Witcher, but fundamentally, as a _person_ . I chose you because you were someone I thought I could devote myself to, someone _worth_ devoting myself to, not just for a human’s lifetime, but for the length of mine. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. Do I truly mean nothing to you?”

“I never asked you to do any of that! I have had enough of binding people to me. You might have chosen me, but _I didn’t choose you_.”

It’s like a knife being driven into her heart. She gasps and tears well up in her eyes as she stares at him, but he doesn’t take back the words. He stands there like a statue, only the trembling of his fists at his sides betraying that he is still alive.

“Do it,” he repeats a final time, his voice whisper-quiet, but she hears the words loud and clear all the same.

In the end, it feels something like a bridge snapping underfoot and sending her plunging into frigid waters below. It’s the worst feeling in the world, and at the very center of it, her broken heart, ripped asunder by Eskel’s words. She’d thought that after a year of traveling together he might have some affection for her, some ounce of friendliness towards her. Now she realizes that anything she had, she lost. She has never felt so cold or so small before, nor so powerless. She shuts her eyes before the dark can close in around her vision and curls up under the furs, only distantly aware that she’s shivering.

When she next opens her eyes, Eskel is already gone, but her chains sit open and unlocked beside her.

It would be only too easy to just disappear and leave now, but she’s so cold, so tired.

She buries herself in the furs and prays for peace.

He feels unmoored and empty, like a piece of him is missing, like he’s just been dropped into a northern lake. Looking at the shivering form under the furs, there’s just one thing he wants to do, but when he finally unsticks his feet from the floor, he finds himself moving to the door instead and he can’t turn himself around. The valley lies before him a wasteland of white and all around him the snow continues to fall. The cold wind should burn his cheeks, should bite his fingers and his nose, but it pales in comparison amidst the frigid emptiness that settles deep inside his chest. He feels like he’ll never be warm again. He wonders if the others feel this cold all the time, if he’s been with Cricket long enough that he’d forgotten the reality of winter.

Or Kasia. Whatever name, whatever form she takes nowadays.

Whoever she is, whoever she was, his body aches from the loss of her, but he’s afraid to admit that the cold is the only difference. His mind is, and always was, his own.

Thankfully, Lambert avoids him for the rest of the day. The one time he’d come across the younger wolf, Lambert had exhaled a short breath through his nose and shook his head, but said nothing. And wasn’t that something. Geralt makes himself scarce, but from the snippets of overheard conversations, it’s more out of an effort to keep Jaskier from beating him into a pulp more than anything else. Eskel’s well aware that the cat and the bard are close friends. He knows he’s dodging the inevitable, but, gods help him, his stomach turns at the thought of setting another foot inside that dark little cell.

He didn’t redo her chains, he remembers bolting out of the room before the thought ever crossed his mind. She’s probably already up and left, convinced Geralt to let her pass through the wards. He wouldn’t blame her. She deserves so much better after all the hurt he’s caused her. It’s for the best that he’s broken the only thing tying them together, even if it leaves him feeling hollow.

Sometime during another night he can’t sleep through, he finds himself at the top of the stairs that lead down into the cells. It feels cold, but that’s not surprising given the depth of this part of the keep. A deep breath in. Not even the faintest whiff of lilacs.

She’s gone then.

All for the best, he tells himself.

Jaskier accosts him in the stables the next day, blue eyes burning with a righteous fury. Geralt is nowhere to be found. The bard rips the brush from his hand and throws it unceremoniously over his shoulder, and really, it shouldn’t be so easy for the bard to manhandle him up against the nearest wall. Scorpion, the bastard, just snorts and shakes his head. 

“Why did you do it?”

Up this close, Eskel can see the way the bard’s skin is flushed and blotchy with rage, can feel the spittle landing on his cheeks. 

“I had to know.” It’s not a good answer, not by a long shot, but it’s all he has.

“Know what?” Jaskier’s fists tighten around his sweater and drive the Witcher hard against the wall once more. 

Eskel groans but leaves his hands at his sides. Some better part of him tells him that he deserves this and more. “That my feelings were my own.”

The hands relax, but Jaskier’s eyes still burn into his. “And?”

He has to drop his gaze. If not for the bard’s grasp on him, surely he would also drop himself to the floor. The same sensation of being lost at sea rushes over him. A hand comes up to his chest before he’s even aware of the movement, his fingers tracing a spot over his heart, but there is no scar, no physical reminder of what he had. What he threw away. “They were.”

Jaskier laughs brokenly but steps back to let the Witcher fall to his ass against the wall. Eskel hopes the grunt he gives on impact pays a little of the debt he surely owes after all this emotional turmoil he’s brought to his little family. The bard shakes his head and squats in front of him, flicking the Witcher on the forehead. He tries to look serious, but the beginning of a hopeful smile is already tugging at the corners of his lips.

“It’s maddening how alike you and Geralt are sometimes. Truly, does neither of you learn from the mistakes of the other?”

“I had to know,” he says again, helplessly. He fiddles with a loose strand of hay he picks up from the floor, snapping it in halves over and over again between his nails until he’s left with nothing.

A heavy sigh drags his gaze upwards once more to find the bard running his hand over Scorpion’s broad muzzle. Jaskier looks upon the horse with a fondness that Eskel knows deep down is meant for the cat that’s not just a cat. “And now that you do, you need to decide where you want to go from here, whether she stays or goes.”

“What?” he mumbles dumbly, a line forming between his brows. What he’s suggesting shouldn’t be possible. It _shouldn’t_. “She’s still here?”

Jaskier shakes his head and presses his forehead to Scorpion’s muttering something about _stupid, fucking Witchers_ under his breath. The horse nudges back gently, mouthing at the bard’s pockets for treats that aren’t there. Batting the stallion away, Jaskier shifts his stance, biting his lower lip in thought.

“Fuck, she didn’t want me to tell you this, but, yes, she’s still here, but it’s, well, it’s altogether, um, entirely clear how long she will remain here. As in here-here. With us. On this plane. Please tell me you understand my meaning because she will also know that I told you if I told you in explicit terms what’s actually happening. Because of fucking course, like attracts like and you’re _both the most self-sacrificing bastards alive._ Melitele’s _tits_ , and Geralt calls _me_ dramatic.”

Scorpion balks at the wave of emotion that pours out of the bard, but his halter keeps him from pulling away too far. He still dances nervously until Jaskier catches his head between both hands, smoothing down his forelock with a gentle apology. Eskel’s never seen him react so strongly before.

“Bard,” Eskel says, drawing out the word dangerously slowly as he rises to his feet. His hands shake, but he thinks he manages to disguise the tremors by brushing off his trousers.

“I just-,” and those blue eyes look up at him with such a desperate sort of sadness that Eskel _does_ understand his meaning. The next time he speaks, his voice breaks and he chokes back a sob. “She made her choice, Eskel.” 

It’s past time he made his.

It’s cold. It’s so cold.

She curls up more tightly and pulls her tail up over her face, but it’s not enough. It’s still too cold, and she’s so tired.

Were it not for Jaskier’s insistence that Cricket Kasia hadn’t left the keep, Eskel would have written off the cell as unoccupied. Even the smallest mouse leaves behind a thin thread of warmth, a sliver of scent in the air, but nothing of the sort greets him when he steps through the doorway, chest heaving from the effort of running all this way. Even the pile of blankets seems much smaller than he’s ever seen them, but swallowing down his own fear, he forces himself to move. His hands shake again as he reaches out, and he takes a deep breath in the hopes of steadying himself.

Instead, he chokes on it when he pulls the first blanket away to reveal the small form tucked inside. 

It’s Eskel. Only it can’t be him.

It’s a fever dream.

She blinks slowly and her vision blurs him out in the dim light. Her head falls back against the furs beneath her. The long strands tickle her tongue, poke at her eye, but she hasn’t the energy to resituate herself. 

He thinks he sees her paw twitch up towards him before her head falls back limply, her mismatched eyes falling shut. She doesn’t move again even when he runs a hand over her back. She’s cold, so cold. He pulls her against his chest then wraps one of the larger pelts around him both. A hand pressed under her right arm, if there’s a pulse, it’s too weak for him to feel it.

 _Fuck_.

It feels like a fool’s hope, but it’s all he has to offer to the one creature in the world that would have given itself up for him. Eskel runs through the keep as quickly as he can, but time has a funny way of moving much faster just when you need more of it. His feet carry him to his room before he even realizes where he’s headed, and he sets her down on the furs just before the fireplace. Igni sets the logs there alight immediately, but he holds the sign a bit longer just as a precaution. She’s not a phoenix. He doesn’t think fixing her will be as easy as tossing her to the flames, but this, this he can do, get her warm again.

Only the crackling of the wood in the fireplace breaks the silence now, an intermittent snap and pop.

He’s done all he can think of, pulled off every blanket, wool and fur pelts of beasts he’s killed, piled them high around the little creature. Leaning back against the foot of his bed, clothed only in a light linen shirt and trousers, the room feels like a furnace, but he has no idea if it will be enough. The stack of wood to the side of the room grows smaller and smaller.

He has every intention of maintaining a silent vigil over the fire, but sometime before daylight begins to creep in through the window, his eyes slide shut and sleep _finally_ takes him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um.....*ducks under lap desk* I am SO SORRY.
> 
> This is the last HURT chapter of the hurt/comfort.
> 
> Just comfort then epilogue. They aren't fully written out yet so it might be a while. Um, yeah, hell of a cliffhanger. Sorry. SO SORRY.
> 
> Pronounciation note: Kasia is ka-sha, from what google tells me


	14. CH12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which a cat and a Witcher have a much needed heart-to-heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's actually gonna be another chapter after this because this was taking such a long time to be written. Then epilogue.

He’s never had to work this hard to wake up before, but sleep constantly seeks to draw him back. He lets it the first time. The second, he fights. He doesn’t win until the fourth time.

After a substantial effort, he manages to get one eye open.

Almost immediately he wishes he could return to the innocence, the neutrality of sleep.

It’s ~~Cricket~~ Kasia, seated at the foot of the bed, facing the fire, away from him. Her posture is bent, likely with her knees pulled up to her chest. She makes no sound, and that’s good, he has to tell himself. He couldn’t bear it if she were crying. He must shift or something because suddenly ocean blue eyes are on him, and he wants nothing more than to be several hundred miles away from here.

“You should have left,” he says, and of course it’s the wrong thing to say. As soon as the words leave his lips, tears well up in those pretty blue eyes, and she stumbles to her feet, bracing herself against the bed. She looks halfway to running, and it’s all he can do to ask her to stay. “No, no, that’s- _fuck,_ that’s not what I meant. I _thought_ you would have left after everything I did.”

She freezes, turns to face him, and fuck, she should be angry, she should be screaming at him, but no, no, all he can smell is her sorrow and her hurt, and, bless every star, _lilacs_. “I made my choice,” she says quietly, echoing Jaskier’s words back in the stables.

“And?”

A shake of her head and an incredulous laugh that nearly morphs into a whimper. “I asked for it to end, Eskel. I was so tired of always losing the people who meant the most to me, to the people I had bonded with. I thought finally I’d found someone I wouldn’t have to lose, and you _asked me to break it._ I wanted it to end.”

As soon as the first tear rolls down her cheek, he kicks his legs over the side of the bed, and suddenly he’s the one stumbling around, trying to steady his legs. He reaches out to her, but his hand falters halfway between them. He knows his touch will be unwelcome. “Cricket, shit, _Kasia_ , I’ll get it right, I will, I just— Choice is important to me. I reacted badly, I know that, but it’s-”

“Then tell me,” she asks. She has to tilt her head back to look him directly in the eyes when she steps forward, then breaks his gaze to grasp his hand between both of hers. “Tell me so I can understand. Please.”

It doesn’t come easily. It never does. He doesn’t even speak of it amongst the other wolves; it’s a chapter he would prefer to keep closed.

They sit shoulder to shoulder almost, but Kasia is studiously careful about leaving space between them even if she keeps her hand in his, her thumb idly stroking the back of his hand.

“What do you know of the Law of Surprise?”

“Not much. I know that one of my charges, a boy, Olivier, he got a fine hunting dog after he fired on a boar mid-charge and saved the life of one in his hunting party. Why?”

“Well, it’s not always a pup. Sometimes it’s people, Child Surprises, they call it. That's how many of us were brought here. We didn’t choose to become Witchers, it was either that or die in the process. And from there, it doesn’t get any better. Witchers don’t retire. They get slow, they make mistakes, and they die. We are _never_ given a choice in any of it.” His hand begins to form a fist before he remembers that their hands are still joined. She shifts on the bed to pull up one leg onto the covers, keeping it bent so she can hold his hand with both of hers, a frown on her face. “Sorry.”

“I didn’t know. We only got the usual rumors, that you stole children in the night, not that I ever believed them.”

“Yes, well, everything has a grain of truth to it in the end. We did take children away from their families, but there was one that we didn’t. That _I_ didn’t. I never should have invoked the Law of Surprise. I never should have risked taking the choice from someone else, but I did.”

“What happened to them?” she asks carefully.

“She was cursed the moment she was born under the Black Sun. She was hunted and feared, and, fuck, we should have done better by her, _I_ should have, she was _my_ Child Surprise, not Geralt’s, not Lambert’s, but mine, but we chose neutrality because it was _our code_ , what else were we supposed to do? She nearly killed me before she ran.”

“Is that-”

He nods, swallowing thickly, and her hands tighten around his. 

“We left her to her fate, and she killed _so many people_. It took me two years to find her and put an end to it. It was either that or let her be dissected by a sorceress, and she deserved better than that. It was because of me that it all went to shit anyway. The least I could give her was a good death.”

He can feel her watching him intently. He knows he could have done more for Deidre, but at the time, he had had no choice. At least, it felt like he hadn’t. It was always so black and white then. Neutrality at the cost of everything else. They killed monsters, they didn’t partake in wars. It wasn’t easy, casting her out of the keep. Harder still to swallow the news that she’d gone on a rampage after that, killing several innocents in the process. All because he’d made a choice too many years before, claiming the Law of Surprise.

He’s still glad it was him in the end, who took her life. Better than to leave her to be cut up by magic users, to be studied less as a human and more like a monster. He’d been able to give her as proper a burial as he could manage out in the woods. Her story ended there, but he carried it with him always in his scars.

A featherlight touch by his ear startles him from his thoughts. He doesn’t jump, but his eyes widen and he turns into it.

“Is that why—,” she starts, and somehow Eskel knows she’s asking a different question this time.

Her hand is so light, every move of her fingers careful as they trace over the rough edges. She stops just shy of where they curve across his lip, lets her hand fall back to her lap. He can still feel a phantom caress while she pulls absently at a loose thread on the blanket.

“The last time someone was bound to me a lot of people died, I almost died, and in the end, I had to be the one to kill her. I couldn’t do it again. _I can’t._ ”

She holds out a hand, palm up. The choice is his when he places his in hers. “I never meant to take your choice away. I am sorry I didn’t give you the option before I bound myself to you, and I can’t pretend that it didn’t hurt, that it doesn’t still hurt, but in spite of it all, there is still a part of me that stands by my choice that night in the woods. If you still want me to leave after the thaw, then I will, but I think we both deserve a second chance, if you'll give me one.”

He opens his mouth to speak, but she shakes her head. 

“Don’t answer right now, we’ll have time to talk later. For now, will you let me find you something to eat?”

For the first time, he glances to the window and finds it must be well into the afternoon, nearly dusk. “How long did I sleep?”

She ducks her head and looks sheepish. “Now that I’m looking back on it, I probably shouldn’t have done it, but you needed _restful_ sleep, you looked like actual horse shit.”

He knows she was right. He certainly felt like it, he’d been running entirely on fumes for far too long, and then it had all come to a head, and he’d been left horribly drained. He can’t begrudge her for wanting to help.

Instead he lets her lead the way down to the kitchen. They descend the stairs side by side, and he glances down. It’s not wholly unlike before, when she walked beside him on four paws instead of two feet. Her present at his side is a welcome source of warmth even though she doesn’t let it bubble around her to include him.

Luck grants them the small mercy of an empty kitchen. It’s easy to forget that Cricket and Kasia are the same creature. For a moment, he stands shocked that she seems to know where everything is, the bowls, the spoons, the bread that must have been baked earlier in the day. She serves herself first from the large pot of stew sitting in the hearth. No steam rises from it, but a steady stream trails after the bowl in her hands as she steps away to seat herself at the table.

“Do you want to light a fire, or would you let me do this for you?” She asks just before he slides onto the bench across from her. His own bowl is steaming, but the cold has the hairs on the back of his arms standing on end.

She looks so earnest and hopeful, there’s really only one answer he wants to give. “Only if you don’t mind.”

“I never do.” She smiles and immediately, the flood of warmth takes him back to the days when young boys still ran through the halls, fires blazing in every hall. It feels like home again in a way that it hasn’t since that night in the training room.

He wants this. This peace and this calm. 

But wanting and deserving are two very different things.

When they have had their fill of food and wine, when their bodies remind them that it was not so long ago that they fell asleep on the floor, when they at last retire to bed, Eskel follows Kasia through the keep like a planet caught in the orbit of the most radiant star. It is not an easy quiet, too heavy with the knowledge that there are matters in dire need of discussion, but it is peaceful. He hates to consider it the calm before the storm, but he has felt this before. The quiet before the thunderclap. Her palm is warm against his, and he has to fight the urge to draw it to his lips, just pause in the hallway, hold her close and just _be_.

She must sense something of his hesitation when they reach the doorway. She pushes the door open and gently, always gently, tugs him inside so she can shut it behind him.

Those bright blue eyes blink up at him, and he finds himself giving voice to all his doubts, “Why are you still here? After everything I, after everything I did to you? I don’t deserve your forgiveness. I almost killed you.”

The shadow of a smile flickers across her face, but the corners of her lips twitch upwards only for a moment before dropping back into a frown. A hand comes up to rest over his heart, her fingertip taps over where her mark must have been. Gold eyes flick down to her hand first, then back to her eyes. His heart rate ticks up at the fondness he finds there instead of blame. It doesn’t make sense.

“Darling, my dearest Witcher, I was born not just for this, but for _you_. I was born to press my head between your shoulder blades, at night when light is fading, to take your pain and to keep you safe.”

Her hand remains a constant point of contact, as if he’s a horse she’s trying not to spook, while she shifts to stand behind him. Finally, her hands come to rest at his sides, clenching the loose fabric over his hips. He’s grateful she can’t see the color that rushes to his cheeks at how intimate it all feels. Her words are already almost too much, and then she presses her forehead against his back. He inhales sharply at the rush of contentment that floods his veins; it’s a breath that burns in his throat, with a bite he feels throughout his lungs. 

“But why me?” he gasps, breathless. He tries to turn, but her hands tighten and he freezes.

He thinks he can feel the ghost of a kiss pressed against his skin, nothing more than a brief flare of warmth through his shirt. Then, she moves to stand before him once more, walking backwards to lead him to the bed by their linked hands. She guides him to sit beside her so she can brush the hair away from his face, her thumb running over the lines of his scars. It’s a gruesome thing to look at, he knows, he hates to see his reflection in the basin every morning when he goes to wash his face, but he can find neither fear nor disgust in the sparkling cerulean of her eyes.

“I have said it a dozen times already, but I would say it a thousand times more if that’s what it takes for you to believe it. You are _good_ , Eskel. You are goodness and kindness and all the things that should have been stamped out by the world, and yet here you are, you beautiful thing.”

“I’m- I’m not-”

She silences him with a fond look. “You asked me why I chose you, so let me speak. Years and years of my life spent in selfless devotion, I waited centuries for a Witcher to come along so that, for once in my life, I could be _selfish_ . Feliks hadn’t wanted me back then, the need of my village for a protector was still too great, and he hadn’t wanted to be responsible for their decline in my absence. So he asked me to stay, to keep them safe, and to wait for the right Witcher to come along. Now, I asked you some time ago, and you didn’t answer. _Why did you come?_ ”

He sighs and he picks at the skin around a nail absently until her hand slides over his and threads their fingers together.

“Is this okay?”

Nodding, he struggles to put his thoughts to words, but her presence is a guiding light, warmth and peace.

“Feliks was killed less than a decade after I became a Witcher. We weren’t close, not like he was with Vesemir, but he was a good person. He was the kind of Witcher I wanted to be, before I was put through the Trials, when I still looked up to them like they were these amazing gods. After the Trials, after I survived, he was one of the first to visit me. They still had me blindfolded so I could get used to my other senses first. He told me stories of his time on the Path, what I could expect, interesting places to visit.”

He laughs and shakes his head. Suddenly, everything makes sense now that he’s thinking about it.

“Fuck. He told me about you.”

Kasia startles and leans away to look him in the eye, and his hand comes up, his skin oddly cool without hers over it, to cup her cheek as she’d done with him. He lets his hand curl around her ear, much like he’d done in her cat form. A laugh bubbles up in his throat at the way she seems to melt into the caress, but he forces himself to pull his hand back into his lap. He doesn’t miss the way she leans forward for a moment as if chasing his touch. It brings a small smile to his face, however brief.

“In his own way, he did. He told me to always hold onto my kindness and to always be kind to cats. Then he told me about a little village in the south that never seemed to have a problem with monsters. It seemed like a fairytale then, and for a long time I was sure it was. Until I came across it myself.”

“And what did you think of us?”

“I found it odd, that a village so small could be so well protected from monsters without any obvious outside influence. Even your strongest men were not trained to fight, only to drive a plow through hard earth. I admit I did not expect their guardian to leave and follow me.”

“As I told Lambert before, I am inexcusably selfish.” She lets herself fall back against the bedspread with a sigh, folding her hands over her stomach. She pats the bed next to her until he lies down with her. Their shoulders touch but neither one shifts to move away. “I will go back to them if you will not have me, keep them safe as I have for centuries, but I don’t think I could do it again, bind myself to another.”

“What would you do then? Live in the forest?”

There’s an air of incredulousness in his voice that she of course immediately picks up on, propping herself up on one elbow to look him in the eye. She pouts and her brows knit together. It’s all the warning he gets before she punches him in the shoulder. It’s not hard, not like she aims to bruise, certainly not any harder than Lambert could throw in a bar brawl, but it’s jarring all the same.

“I would actually. You need to understand that what I am is all I have ever known. I love deeply, it is a curse of mine, to devote myself to a single soul, but it is all I know how to do, how to be. Do you know how painful it is that everyone I love, I lose? As you have your Path, I have mine. I would protect them because they protected my secret all this time, but in time I would fade.”

“Fade?”

This time, she’s the one to flop back onto the bed while Eskel raises himself up, leaning back against his hands. Her eyes flick up to him, she frowns and nods. “Yes, I don’t know how it all works, the magic of what I am, I’ve never met someone else like me to ask, but I lose a little more of myself the longer I’m without a tether.” Then suddenly she’s sitting up again, reaching a hand out towards him, but she stops shy of placing her hand on his knee. “Shit, please don’t take this as me pressuring you or anything. It’s only, well, you should know the truth. The whole truth, at least as much as I understand it. It’s nothing that happens overnight. We have time, I mean, _I’ll_ have time to figure something out, find someone else. It doesn’t have to be you.”

“But you want it to be?” The incredulousness is back again, and her mouth twists into scowl.

“I do,” she answers without looking him in the eye. “After everything, I still do. I’ve been alive longer than you have. You’re a rare thing, Eskel.”

The way she whispers it, it sounds like a prayer offered up to the heavens and she holds her palm up in offering. It’s an easy thing to slide his hand over hers. He has to sit up straight and use his other hand to tilt her chin up to meet his eyes, but he’s glad he does if only to see the way her eyes widen, the smile as it stretches across her face when he says in a quiet, but sure, voice, “That second chance you were looking for, it’s yours, though I’m still not sure I deserve one.”

“In my experience, it is a good man who doubts what he deserves. Now get your rest. Jaskier gave us today, but I owe the rest of your family an explanation tomorrow.”

“Is that where you went while I was asleep?” He slides off the edge of the bed, moving over to the dresser in the corner to fish out clean clothes. With his back to her, he strips down and changes, and it feels weird though he knows he’s changed in front of her several times before when she was a cat. When he turns back, there isn’t the slightest bloom of color to her cheeks to suggest embarrassment.

“I am older than you, Eskel, you’re not the first person I’ve ever seen in the nude,” she laughs at something in his expression, but stands to let him draw back the covers. “But, yes, I visited him. He is a good person, and I’m profoundly lucky to be able to call him a friend.”

“If you need a change of clothes, feel free to take anything.”

“Oh, I don’t need clothes to sleep with you.”

Both pairs of eyes go comically wide.

“Lambert doesn’t hear about this. Just shut up and go to sleep.”

When her weight settles against his side and the purring starts, all thoughts of teasing her flee his mind. This time, he doesn’t have to dream to smell the lilacs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year!!!
> 
> Me at the end of Nov: man, I can't write 50k words. I'm gonna write a quick Witcher fic to distract myself.
> 
> Me now: so I guess we can write 50k words after all
> 
> He-hey i did the thing and used lyrics from The Amazing Devil's "It's Not Fair" 😅. Anyway, I want to thank everyone who is still here, with me, chugging along. Thank you for every kudos, comment, bookmark, hit. ❤


	15. CH13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which certain scores are settled

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this one entirely on my phone so apologies in advance if formatting looks off or there are typos. I think I found most of them.
> 
> I squee'd a little. Hope yall are ready for some good feels for once.

While Kasia is the first to rise in the morning, she remains in her cat form while Eskel dresses for the day, promising to bathe later when she narrows her eyes at him, nose tipped up. As soon as he’s got his boots on, she’s already stretching upwards for the door handle. They aren’t the first ones down at the kitchen this time, and it’s strange, watching the way her form lengthens and changes from cat to human. It’s downright impressive that she can do it quickly enough to catch Jaskier in her arms when he leaps at her. He wonders idly if it’s a move they’ve practiced or Jaskier’s simply that trusting of his friends.

The bard’s momentum carries them into a dance-like spin for several feet until Kasia finally lets his feet touch the floor, and Eskel has to snort. Their height difference is ridiculous given that _Kasia_ had been the one holding the other up.

“You’re alright then?” Jaskier asks, ignoring the Witcher, not that Eskel blames him.

Kasia smiles and glances at Eskel, something akin to fondness in her eyes but also deeper than that, before nodding at Jaskier and pecking him on the cheek. “Yes, yes, I think we will be. Thank you for yesterday.”

“You are very welcome, my Lady,” he professes and bows low before he offers her an arm to lead her to the table.

Even Geralt chuckles at the sight, ladling out two more bowls for Eskel to carry, and then it’s the four of them gathered together as though they’d always been friends.

“Cat, Kasia, I’m, hmm, I am--, you didn’t deserve what was done to you,” Geralt mutters into his oats.

Her spoon clinks noisily onto the tabletop. “It’s in the past. It’s fine.”

“It’s not. Fine. We shouldn't have, we _hunted_ you. Like a monster.”

But she merely shrugs and avoids his eyes. “Because I am one. I’m not human.”

“Nor are we.”

Jaskier elbows him in the side.

“It’s the truth, Jaskier!” He doesn't meet her eyes, but he forces himself to speak. The words come slowly, as though being pulled from tar, but come they do and she forces herself to look him in the eye. "Monsters are not monsters because of what they are, but by what they choose to do."

"Oh, _Geralt,_ you remembered that?" Jaskier croons and Kasia studiously stares at her bowl, despite her appetite long since having fled. She can hear the quiet scratch of Jaskier’s shaved cheek when he nuzzles against Geralt, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. She doesn't have to see it too.

"You were never a monster, yet we treated you as one because you were something we didn't understand. You hurt Eskel, yes, but it wasn't your choice. We still treated you as if it had been, and for that, I am sorry."

The Witcher sits stiffly in his seat, his hand fisted around his spoon, his lower jaw jutting out slightly. She can almost hear his teeth grinding together if she focuses hard enough. Then she reaches out to cover his hand with hers. She doesn’t speak, just offers him a small smile. It will take time, but she knows she's already forgiven him.

That and she's certain he's already gotten an earful from Jaskier.

The rest of breakfast passes quietly save for the pop of a jar being opened, the clink of a spoon against glass, the slap of another serving of oatmeal being measured out into a bowl. She's grateful for it, the quiet, and she lets the happy warmth fill her up and surround the four of them. It loosens something in her chest to see Geralt's shoulders drop, the lines on his forehead smoothing out.

Even after the pair have eaten their fill, they linger. The Witchers make casual smalltalk amongst themselves, what potions they'll take on the Path with them from the keep’s stores, specific towns they plan to visit for various festivals during the year, anything they'll need to buy in town before they leave. Jaskier talks lyrics and melodies with Kasia, and she delights in the idea that perhaps if he sings a song of her, maybe they can draw another of her kind out of the woodwork. If there are any others to be found, but it’s a start. He does not mention love, but she can see it in his eyes, the caution and the question. It's not like that, she says. But I would not hate it if it were, she keeps to herself.

Vesemir freezes in the doorway the instant he spots Kasia at the table. Even with her back to him, she knows he's there in the way that everyone else tenses around her. Eskel goes silent beside her. Across from him, Geralt releases a long breath through his nostrils and he pushes aside his spoon and bowl to the center of the table with an eerie calm and instead places his hand over Jaskier’s where it rests on the tabletop. The bard practically vibrates, his shoulders tremble with the effort it must take to keep himself from vaulting over the table. He looks damn near feral when she finally looks up at him.

“Lady Kasia—”

“Stop, please," she says, voice sharp, and she forces herself to sit up straight, hands folded demurely in her lap. "My Mistress was the lady, not me.”

"Then, Kasia, I believe I owe you an apology," he begins, but she isn't in the mood.

She turns suddenly, swinging her legs over the bench to stride directly up to him. She doesn't stop until she's nearly chest to chest with the man, until she's crowded him against the wall of the hallway outside the kitchen. They stand close enough that she can smell the guilt rolling off him in waves, and the shame. It’s too little, too late, but if there's one thing she's learned in her uncommonly long life, it's that there is little use in holding grudges. 

"I don't want your apologies. However, there is one thing that would make me feel better, if it would make you all stop looking sorry for yourselves."

He's smart enough that he merely lifts a brow.

"I'm not bound to any of you. I _can_ actually hurt you and mean it. Let me hit you, each of you, just once. Perhaps then you'll understand what I meant when I said I couldn't hurt Eskel, not intentionally."

She expects him to balk, to flinch, to refuse.

Yet his expression never changes. He shift

"Lead the way."

By luck they happen across Lambert on the way, bringing in more firewood from the shed outside, stacking it in the basket.

"Cat."

"Lambert."

"Listen, I-"

"Save it and follow me if the next words out of your mouth were going to be an apology."

"What's all this about?" He asks but falls into step just behind her anyway, bumping shoulders with Eskel who only shakes his head.

"I'm going to fucking destroy you," she purrs the words, turning so he can see the manic grin that stretches across her face. Then she laughs and looks ahead, shrugging. "Not really. I'll only hit you the once."

"Like that or like," he drops his hand down to knee height, "like the cat?"

"Like this."

She doesn't speak again until they enter the training room. She flinches when she steps into the room, shakes her head, then continues until she stands at the very center, waiting for the Witchers to file in one by one, but rather than follow her down, they remain just inside the doorway, hovering like children waiting to be scolded by an irate headmistress. Which she supposes is not that far from the truth.

"No volunteers?"

Jaskier is merciless when he pushes Geralt forward.

"Don't give me that look. Surely a big, strong Witcher can handle one hit from a noble little lady?" Jaskier snickers even though he knows damn well that Kasia is stronger than she appears. Geralt seems to know it too, but eventually he moves.

Geralt sighs and steps forward at last.

"You should plant your feet," she says it easily, conversationally, shifting her own stance across from him, as though they're merely old friends sparring. It’s an odd look given her dress and her footwear, but he's well versed in appearances being deceiving. Sometimes it’s the smallest things that pack the biggest punch.

Steeling himself does nothing against the swift devastation that she delivers directly to his solar plexus. He curls forward around her arm before falling to the ground and rolling onto his back. Stars dance in his vision until she leans over him.

"Fuck." He wheezes as soon as he can draw air into his lungs again. _Fuck_. It hurts to breathe.

"Good."

Then she offers him a hand and hoists him back onto his feet with an ease he can't find surprising now that he's felt even a fraction of the raw strength she possesses. Jaskier just pats him on the back and laughs when he shuffles over and slumps against the wall, an arm loosely held around his stomach.

"How do you feel?"

"Can't say I didn't deserve that," he grunts and leans his head back against the wall.

Eskel clicks his tongue above him, crossing his arms over his chest. "And you've got Jaskier's good graces to draw upon. She pulled her punch for you. The rest of us?" He shakes his head again. Melitele knows he's in for a world of hurt.

But surprisingly, before he can push himself away from the wall, a hand at his elbow holds him back.

It's Lambert.

"Then let's save the best for last, big boy."

Lambert skips down next and holds his arms out to either side, a swagger in his step. He grins rakishly at her, "Not the pretty face, alright?", but the Witchers can all hear the beat of his heart when Kasia stares him down. False bravado doesn't exist amongst Witchers, it cannot pass for truth, but it's a fair attempt at bravery, she'll give him that much credit. He goes down hard, choking and gasping for air, but as soon as he unfurls and can breathe somewhat normally again, she's there with a hand outstretched and a gentle smile on his face. She can still take away the hurt, the ache, but this is one pain that she will leave for them.

Again, Eskel is stopped from taking his penance, a hand on his shoulder, and Vesemir moves past him. Only the hitch in his breath when he raises his eyes to meet the dangerous swirls of blue reveals the slightest hint of his apprehension. 

When Vesemir stands before her, he does not brace himself for the impact. He bows his head, resigned. One hit. It doesn't feel like it should be nearly enough after everything they've done.

Unlike the others, she doesn't go for an abdominal strike with him. She goes straight for a powerful right hook that sends him tumbling across the floor. He spits out blood when he forces himself onto his hands and knees, ears still ringing.

"Feliks was right to keep you a secret."

"No more apologies. We're even."

He doesn't release her hand for several moments, golden eyes searching hers, but when he does, he dips his head and steps away, apparently satisfied by what he finds.

Then only Eskel remains, a sheepish figure against the wall. Vesemir has his hand on his shoulder once again while Geralt and Lambert watch from their seats on the floor.

"I know what I asked for, but I don't want it, not from you."

"Then what?" He croaks, coughs to clear his throat.

"Spar with me."

"As you wish."

It's the easiest thing in the world to settle into a defensive stance, harder to convince himself to strike first.

Kasia doesn't have the same qualms. She moves fast, darting in and out with quick jabs to his side. For every strike he manages to get, she slides in three of her own, and even then, none of his hits land well. It's maddening, or it should be, but instead his heart soars with joy, the rush of adrenaline surging in his veins. He doesn't hold back, and when he manages to get his arm up to block a swing from her left hand, he can feel that she's not holding back either, not anymore. Every hit will bruise, and already his whole body aches from the effort of keeping up with her. He's never had to fight monsters this long before, and he's quite glad of Jaskier's running interference for them the day before to give them both the time to rest. If he'd had to do this yesterday, he knows without a doubt he would already be on the ground.

As it is, the ground is starting to look like a more and more likely outcome the longer they go on. And he's the only one outwardly struggling to breathe. The sweat beading at her temples is but a small consolation. Panting slightly, he gasps while they circle each other, "Where did you learn to fight?"

"Pick up a few things when you've lived so long," she answers with a shrug. "Have to say, it's been a while since I had a partner."

But she fights as though she had been born for it. Her movements are sure in the way that speaks to years of practice, experience. She moves like a Witcher. The realization nearly catches him off guard and he only barely manages to duck away from another right hook. Feliks must have taught her a trick or two when they crossed paths. She's never revealed just how long they spent in the other's company, but clearly it was long enough to mold her into a more than capable fighter. A Witcher's fighting style paired with her innate strength, Vesemir’s words ring true. Feliks was right to keep her a secret. Something this powerful, this dangerous on the loose, the Witchers of old, and fuck, clearly the Witchers of now too, would have scoured the world to find her.

He catches her fist before it can connect and spins her around so his other arm is wrapped around her throat, being careful to keep his grip tight lest she slip away like an eel.

"Do you yield?" he pants in her ear. She's so much shorter than him though that he has to bend his head down to whisper the words. If not for the bruises he knows already decorate his skin beneath his clothes, he would say she feels frail, held so close against him like this, her form dwarfed by his, but he knows better. Rather, she feels strong, she feels wild. His grip on her wrist is tight enough that he can feel the flutter of her heartbeat under his fingertips, but he's well aware it wouldn't require too much effort on her part to break free. A well placed elbow would have him on the ground quick enough, but she doesn't move again except to relax in his grasp.

She laughs and then taps the arm at her throat twice. The smile on her face when she twirls away is genuine, the flush on her face accentuates the vivid blue of her eyes. She is a wild thing. A beautiful thing.

"Thank you," she says and comes in close again, close enough she has to tilt her head back to maintain eye contact.

He gulps hard. He wants. He wants so badly to reach out and touch her, to tuck her hair behind her ear where it's escaped her ribbon. More than a few strands have come loose, criss crossing her forehead where they've gotten caught in the sweat from their sparring. But he keeps his hands carefully at his sides, if they tremble, it is purely due to the adrenaline leaving his body. 

"Hey, you went easy on him, I want to see a real punch!" Lambert crows from the sidelines.

"I won't, I've hit you enough times already, it's out of my system," she says at the same time Eskel steps back, arms open, and teases, "Give him what he wants or he won't stop bothering me about it. Make it good."

Lambert cheers ridiculously loudly, clapping his hands when she drops Eskel to his knees with a devastating blow to his liver. Even as his head lolls and his legs wobble under him, Kasia helps him stagger over to the wall where she then regards each of the Witchers, eyes narrowed.

"No more apologies, we're even."

It still doesn't feel like enough, but it's clear she won't hear another word on the subject. Instead she sits cross-legged in front of them, daintily pulling her skirts over her legs, and gestures for Vesemir to seat himself, mumbling how she doesn't like the feeling of him looming. Once he sits in the same fashion, his hands over his thighs rather than folded in his lap, she clears her throat and locks eyes with Eskel.

He offers a smile that she doesn't return, but she breathes out and her shoulders drop. It's something.

Then she talks. She tells them every truth she knows about herself, about what she is. She can manipulate fire and heat as a defensive and offensive mechanism, but for the most part, she uses it to foster calmness, like a hot spring, pushes warmth into a person to literally melt away the aches and pains of the day.

It's easier to do when she's bound herself to someone, she can push the warmth through the bond even if they are not near each other, and that explains a lot about the little bursts of happiness he'd felt on the Path over the last year. Caught up in his thoughts, hunts gone bad, he tended to spiral down, but inexplicably he would feel it. A gentle pulse that would remind him that the sun would still rise, even after the darkest nights.

The bond itself is a strange thing. She passes her hand over his chest, and he can feel the heat emanating from her palm, just shy of unpleasantly hot. They're close enough he can see it when her heart breaks again, the downward tug of her lips, and she pulls away again, rocking back onto her heels.

"It’s gone. I mean, I thought it would be, but I thought it might have left something not unlike a scar. It glows normally, when I hover over it."

Something about the magic of her makes it impossible to lie to whomever she's bound. It's not something that comes up often. None of her other tethers, as she calls them, had ever pieced together the fact that the cat and the human are one in the same, but on the few times she'd been found in a human form, she could lie to the maids or the cooks, but never to her master, leading to several awkward conversations about how she'd come in through the window.

"They had paintings of Roksanna of course, but only as an old matriarch. Not until they did that book did they paint her in her youth. Her great-great-great granddaughter, I think she was at that point, took after her a great deal, but after that, blue eyes became something of a rarity in her line, and never in the boys. Until you, Jaskier."

"What the fuck," Lambert gasps softly, looking rapidly between the cat and the bard.

Just to drive the point home, Jaskier scoots over, still on his rear, until he sits shoulder to shoulder with her, and it’s just downright uncanny.

"Funny how Destiny works sometimes. I do believe our paths were meant to cross, exactly like this, though perhaps with a little less trauma." She raises a hand before anyone can speak. "No apologies. It’s done, it's past."

After that they continue to ask her questions and unlike before, she answers them as readily as she can. Jaskier drills her on stories about his ancestors, but he takes the greatest pleasure in hearing just how similar he is to Roksanna, nearly as much joy as Kasia finds in having this approximation of her first and dearest friend before her in the flesh. It is little wonder then that they have become such fast friends, no matter how much he loved cats before, she's always held a much deeper fondness for him. 

Eventually they take the conversation to the library, moving slowly amidst the tenderness of the bruises. Even pulling her punches, she hadn't gone easy on any of them. Only she and Jaskier skip ahead, already curled up together in the armchair he normally shares with Geralt, by the time the others catch up. The bard just smiles and waves as Geralt snorts at the sight, the haphazard way their legs intertwine and dangle over the arms of the chair. Instead he settles onto a floor pillow, lying on his back, one arm behind his head, the other over his stomach, idly poking at the bruises under his tunic.

Naturally Vesemir takes his usual seat, Lambert taking the chair opposite Jaskier and Kasia, but Eskel takes the seat furthest from the fire, tucked partially into a corner. He only half listens, opening his eyes at a particularly devilish detail of this or that traveling lord and whatever prank she and her tether had gotten up to. There is still an undercurrent of tension, but as the night progresses, the knot loosens. At one point, Vesemir even chuckles and admits to having pulled the same prank on one of his peers in his early years. For a brief moment the mood goes maudlin when she talks about Feliks. He's right though. The Witcher had shown her a thing or two, though from the sound of it, she'd hardly been incapable of self defense before they found each other.

Only when the hour has grown well and truly late, when Jaskier’s exuberance dies down into incomprehensible mumbles against Kasia's shoulder, do they part with the promise of more sparring in the future. Lambert had been surprisingly eager to meet her in the ring in this form, muttering something about how she fights more like a Cat than a Wolf.

Vesemir, when he rises, regards her with a sad sort of half-smile.

"He was a good judge of character and a good man. I am glad that of all the Witchers that have walked this world, he was the one who found you."

They don't hug. It's far too soon for the gesture to feel welcome, but she does thank him earnestly for letting her through the wards that first, fateful day of their meeting.

Geralt has the difficult task of peeling one very reluctant bard away from her, but he manages at last and with no small amount of grumbling protests from said bard. He has no parting words to offer her, just an odd look and a brief nod of his head, then he's gone with Jaskier stumbling alongside. The bard manages a halfhearted wave of his hand before he disappears around the corner.

Then, just as before, only she and Eskel remain.

She pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her cheek atop them, watching him as he stands and takes the seat across from her. They're both tired and a little sore, but neither makes a move to leave just yet.

"You didn't tell them about fading." It's more observation than accustion, but still, the words sound sharp in the quiet.

A sigh and she shuts her eyes. "No. And I still don't know that I should've told you, to be honest."

A line forms between his brows and he frowns. "Why?"

When she opens her eyes again, it's his turn to look away from the raw emotion in those deep blue depths. Her voice cracks when she speaks, "Because, my dear Witcher, for all the grief I have given you about choice, I fear I have still managed to take it from you in the end."

"What do you mean?"

"You're the kindest, most selfless bastard I've ever met. Could you honestly say _no_ to a bond with me, knowing that I will lose my immortality and my sentience without a tether?"

There's a moment of silence and she laughs though the sound is empty and painfully hollow.

"See? You can't."

Before he can speak, the sharp scent of salt pulls his eyes back to hers, overflowing with tears. She sobs quietly into her hands, and he doesn't have to think before he's standing in front of her and tugging her upwards into his arms. It feels right to hold her against his chest, like a piece of a puzzle finding its home. They don't say a word. He simply strokes her hair until the shaking of her shoulders subsides and her hands fisted into his shirt loosen and settle over his hips.

"It's alright, it's alright," he whispers into her ear. He presses a kiss to the crown of her head before he can help it, but he won't apologize for it, not with the way it makes her lean against him. "You said we have time, _you_ have time before it starts. You're right though. I wouldn't say no."

She tries to pull away so she can look him in the eye, but he only tucks himself more closely around her, ducking his head against hers.

"But I would use whatever time you have to prove to you that I choose this, I choose  _ you _ , not out of duty or guilt, but because I genuinely want you as you are. As long as you will have me."

It doesn't take much for her to break his hold, her hands tight around his arms as she searches his face for any sign of falsehood. Her hands reach up to tug him down to her level, her thumb running over his scars in the tender way she tends to do, and he leans into it as he covers her hands with his.

Their eyes slide shut at the same time, and she rocks forward onto her tiptoes to press her forehead against his.

And he feels warm, so impossibly warm and light. He feels as though he might float away on a breeze. He feels untethered in only the very best way.

He feels as much as he hears the words whispered against his lips, "Can I kiss you?"

It's not even a choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And thats it! Thats the end, just the Epilogue left. I may come back and revisit this, maybe have a series spinoff of side adventures, introduce her to Yen and Ciri, but we will see.
> 
> I am so so so grateful to everyone who's followed this to the end.
> 
> I hope this was an ending that did everyone justice. I have come to love all of them in their own ways, especially our dearest little cat. I hope beyond all hope that you enjoyed the ride. 🤍


	16. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or the one in which we reach the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone for reading this far. I can't believe my little one off I wrote to distract myself from my OG nanowrimo effort has snowballed into this.
> 
> Please enjoy.

In summertime they travel south, to the village where it all began, and an old woman pauses in hanging up the clean linens to dry. Her jaw drops and she spins round to call over the other women with their squealing children who don't quite understand why they must put a stop to their playing when they see the figures coming over the hill. A man with two swords on his back, riding atop a tall horse as black as night, but there across his broad shoulders rides a little white cat.

From there, the gathered crowd erupts into a clamor, full of cheers and clapping, laughter and tears in equal turn.

When they are close enough, the children break away at a sprint, full of energy and cheer, they swarm the small party. The horse pauses, swishing his tail, but he lowers his great head to tug at the hair of a little boy who reaches up with a dandelion offering. Meanwhile, the cat leaps down to the soft grass bordering the path before she's off and running with a teasing flick of her tail.

The woman who’d spotted them, a portly figure in a blue dress beneath a white apron stained with old dye, grins at the sight they make and shouts up at the Witcher, wholly unbothered by his unnaturalness, “I thought it was Witches who had familiars, not Witch _ers_ , good sir.”

Eskel laughs from atop Scorpion and, once certain no little children are underfoot, dismounts and leads the horse forward by the reins until they are close enough that she does not have to shout. He looks across the field at the feline as she leads the children on a merry chase through the tall brush to either side of the road. A blue and a green eye flash with mirth when she darts past, a silent blur of white followed by the thunder of several children's feet. A pleasant warmth bubbles up in his chest.

“Not a familiar, but a very good friend," he corrects her at last.

“Aye, and a good thing too she finally tied herself to a Witcher,” the woman says, humming to herself while she presses a handful of clothespins into his free hand. "Leave your horse be or tie him to ol' Marta's fence there. I've got work to finish and I might actually have a chance to do it now the kids are occupied."

It takes no time at all to walk Scorpion to the fenceline, looping his reins over and through the wood. When he returns to the clothesline, he raises a brow at the woman, but without speaking, she simply holds out one end of a long sheet for him to take. He gently walks it out until he can pin it out fully stretched over the rope between the house and the nearby tree. She pulls more clothes out from her basket, and he follows dutifully, feeling more than a little out of place amongst the women, offering her a clothespin whenever she holds out her hand.

“D’you know how they say you feel cold right before you die?”

He nods, and she smiles knowingly, hiding her face behind a pair of long johns she pins into place.

“We have a story here of a cat who comes when death is near. White as a ghost, she creeps inside, and up she hops onto the bed, and you don’t feel cold no more.”

He hums, feeling quite like Geralt, but words fail him. Instead, he shifts to track the motion of the grasses swaying from the cat running through them, the children racing after her, and lets silence fall between them again. Only apparently the woman isn't finished.

She catches his eye and slides up beside him, poking her elbow into his side til he looks down at her. “D’you know how many years I’ve seen her come’n go in the village? Oh, aye, I will miss her sorely when the time comes, but it’s time, I think, that she be spared more death. She deserves peace.”

“And you think she’ll fare any better with a Witcher?” he scoffs, but he swallows down his laughter at the serious look on the woman’s face. It's not the first time he's had this conversation, it's just the first time he's had it with someone other than Kasia. “Death is my trade. Not peace.”

“You’re a Wolf, like the last one," she says it like it means something profound and perhaps it does, but it's lost on him.

He raises a brow again, his confusion genuine.

“My great-gran before she passed made sure we all knew the story, so that we might be able to protect our little friend there. The Witcher from then, he told her not to be afraid. As long as the cat was around, then our little village would be protected. She took _all of us_ , every man, woman, and child who called this place home, to be her family. Blessed was the home that got the privilege of housing her for even one night. She’s seen more death than you, I’d wager. It is good she has you now, someone that death cannot touch.”

He snorts, he can't help it, but he tries to let her down gently, “I don’t know what stories your great-gran told you, but I’m not immortal. I can still be killed.”

But she is completely unfazed, turning to him with a broad grin to pat him on the cheek. The one not marred by scars, he notes. “Aye, but it’ll be a good long while before that happens, longer still now that you’ve got her around.”

“You all knew what she was?”

“Aye, though we have never had a name for it."

“Does it not bother you that she's chosen to stay with me? What about your village?”

“How can I be sad with my heart so full of joy? What happens next is that we will live our lives well, we will hold each other in the final moments of our lives. That was her gift, after all, that at the end of our days, we did not go alone. As for the monsters, well, I think we know who we’ll call upon for them.”

She pats his cheek again, hoists the empty laundry basket onto her hip, and ambles over to the open doorway into the house where she pauses, half-turned to laugh at his expense. 

“Now, come, Witcher, stay a while, rest, eat, and meet the family. You’re a part of it now, lad.”

Later that evening, after several rounds of stories and several more rounds of good ale, when Kasia has sprawled herself across his lap, still in her cat form given the present company, purring against his thigh, he thinks to himself, yes, this is one family he's glad to be a part of.

* * *

The Path is not an easy road to travel. There are monsters everywhere, some human, some not. There are towns that welcome him with open arms, others that throw stones even as they post contracts asking for his help. It's not a life one chooses for oneself. but something about having a cat walking alongside makes it easier to bear.

Eskel looks down, meeting a green and a blue eye with a smile.

Let the White Wolf keep his bard.

This Witcher prefers cats anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you thank you thank you for reading this to the end. An open ending because I think I have to come back. I love them too much to stay away.
> 
> Also I wrote these last two quick bc I got bit by the inspiration bug 🐛 which means I also forgot to eat and definitely didn't drink so ima do that and then go to bed.
> 
> But I can't believe I did it. I finished a 50k! A little late but in roughly the same time frame.


End file.
